Pride under the Cresent Moon
by BananaPropaganda
Summary: [Currently Being Revised]Ronin Takoda is a nearly emotionless vampire who can't stand kids...or people in general. So why does he suddenly attract the attention of a loney young girl? Associating herself with a vampire can't be a good thing... OC's
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own the Saga of Darren Shan. Because you really thought that I did, just wanted to clear that up. The OC's are all mine, though.

--

The sky threatened storms, but the sun was still peeking around the grey clouds just enough to slightly flush the exposed skin of the black-clad man dashing half-heartedly away from two other men.

He was already bloodied and tired—the two had ambushed him and chased him all the way through a dense, lush forest out into the godforsaken sandy plains of what could only be the desolate outskirts of the state of Alabama—and was actually considering stopping and letting them finish him, as depression wasn't easy on anyone, not even a vampire.

Still, to fall without a fight would be disgraceful. His mentor never would have permitted it—even if he had jokingly mentioned such a thing, she would have scowled and demanded that he sit down and slash his stomach like a real samurai, if he wanted so badly to die. He owed it to her, at least, to stop turning tail and running away, he figured, and so pulled into a hault just before more forest, which was toughly and miraculously growing in the sand, as if the trees felt obligated to box in the plains.

He turned over-dramatically to the Vampire Hunters chasing him, sighing with false exasperation as they slowed down, letting them examine his scowling features. For a vampire, he had a strangely little amount of scars, though there was a fairly prominent crescent-shaped line marring his right cheek, but his golden eyes played right into the inhuman theme, even inspiring a small pause out of his attackers as they closed in.

"Time's up, you monster," one hunter growled as he regained his courage, pulling a gun out of his long overcoat and aiming it at the vampire's head.

_Right, courage. Courage has always looked like a .45_, he pondered to himself, sighing. _Still, the aim says that he intends to kill me as quickly and mercifully as possible, so I can only grant him the same._

In less time than it took for a tear to fall from a small, round cheek to the ground, the vampire had pulled a katana from somewhere within his long black cloak and slashed his opponent into two gory halves, unhappily noting that he was fast enough to do so, but apparently not fast enough to avoid the bloodspatter. His face and cloak were immediately dampened by crimson spray.

The other Vampire Hunter's eyes expanded to a gruesome size as his comrade's gun clattered to the ground, and he took off running as demons were playfully nipping at his heels. The vampire felt no need to follow him and kill him like his partner, happy to avoid any further confrontation, being the lazy failure that he was. In fact, he was barely interested in the small girl he knew was standing behind him, paralyzed in fear. He could smell her sweet, young blood.

"You…saw everything, child?" he asked her, without turning around.

He easily sensed that she was trembling and breathing very heavily, but just as he was ready to abandon her, she finally managed to stammer, "Uh…uh-huh."

Deathly silence followed, as he scowled internally at the fact that she had replied after all. Walking away without a conversation, he knew, would have been less troubling.

"I am…truly sorry you had to witness that," he finally sighed, sheathing his sword with a small metallic "click" and turning towards the girl.

She was small, dressed in a blue-green tank top with a yellow flower in the center and baggy silver shorts, and a particularly fresh, nasty scrape on her cheek. The injury was full of dirt and a hideous red-pink color that, even to him, looked to be painfully sore. Plain brown hair shaggily hung in her face, but not enough so that he couldn't see that her bright turquoise eyes were brimmed with frightened tears, and that a few had already made the journey down her cheeks. Also, it seemed he hadn't absorbed all of the Hunter's blood after all, as her face was flecked with a tiny bit of telltale red liquid.

When he walked past her without a second glance, though, she made a small, strangled sound that betrayed her surprise to him. "S-so…you're not gonna hurt me?" she asked, turning to watch him saunter away.

"Don't be stupid, child," he snapped. "You haven't done anything."

With that, he continued his earlier path into the forests, his cloak wrapped against him. He knew that the child was still following him. He could still smell that warm blood that was smeared on her left cheek. But, he never turned to face her, never turned to tell her to go home. He assumed she wasn't so stubborn that she couldn't do that on her own.

--

A/N-Sorry about the short chapter. Hopefully the next one will be up soon.


	2. Chapter 2

The vampire had trudged through thick vegetation for several miles now, and still the little girl was following quietly after him. He wasn't sure whether she knew that _he _knew she was sneaking behind him, but he didn't think so, as she was going out of her way to be quiet and inconspicuous. She was doing okay for a human, in any case, but he could reach out his senses and practically touch her fearful presence, smell both her gentle blood from her scrape and that of the Vampire Hunter, and could hear her wiping at her face, plainly irritated by the tears falling into her injury. Frankly, her very soul was loud, and her life-energy was giving him a headache.

"What do you want?" he snapped suddenly, his voice coming out roughly from its general lack of use. There was a sharp intake of breath, then a short pregnant silence, in which her nervousness was nearly tangible to his strong senses.

"…Y-you killed that man," she finally stammered in a small voice with only the slightest of southern accents, clutching her small hands together at her chest.

"Yes, and you're still following me," he replied humorlessly. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about head injuries, would you?"

"But why?" she persisted quietly.

He stopped in his tracks and sighed. "Don't be stupid. You would never understand, child-"

"I'm not a child!" she snapped, kicking at the ground angrily. Suddenly, as if it was a reaction to her childish behavior, he stopped walking, paused, and then instantly whipped around and raised his hand slightly, frowning. The girl stepped back a bit, her pretty eyes shut with terror at his speed, her hands once again drawn up under her chin.

But instead of hitting her, the vampire sighed and gently cupped her chin in his hand. She still seemed to be pretty blatantly horrified, but didn't try to struggle or draw away from him, and stood gazing into his golden eyes, eyes only wavering to examine his other features. Besides the scar marring his right cheek, his pale skin seemed to almost be flawless, and his long, handsome countenance was framed with airy, jet-black bangs that parted in the center of his face, fell slightly over his eyes, and increased in length as one moved closer and closer to his ears, though even they were hidden behind night-black locks of shoulder length hair, at its longest point. All of this and his straight, handsome nose, strong chin and worried frown all betrayed her first impression of him—murderers weren't supposed to be _pretty_. She continued to search for some sort of flaw.

Seeing that her attention was moving from his eyes to various other parts of his face, he tilted her chin upwards slightly, as to draw back her concentration. "Again, don't be stupid," he said. "Now. Go home. Surely someone your age shouldn't be wandering around."

After looking again into those deep turquoise eyes of hers, he released her and turned again. Several quiet moments went by. Sighing contentedly at the sudden quiet and her diminishing presence, fading slowly and forlornly into the opposite direction, he continued on in search for somewhere to sleep off the few nicks that the two Hunters had managed to inflict upon him.

"Hey!" she suddenly called, her dim voice proving that she had planned on leaving him for about fifty yards, before changing her mind. "Were they the bad guys?"

He continued to walk, but closed his eyes and winced. "Honestly, I'm really not sure anymore, girl," he called back to her. But still, he heard her footsteps following him.

"Hey!"

The vampire let out a low growl, wondering why in the world she wanted to be around him after seeing him kill someone with superhuman speed, and with an ancient katana no less. He opened his mouth to answer her, but before he could, the child had run ahead of him and was holding open his cloak to stare interestedly at his weapon.

"Is this real?" she asked, pointing quickly to the sword, before stupidly reaching out and ripping it from its sheath. She nearly toppled onto it when she discovered how heavy it was, however, and sheepishly took to leaning on it rather than holding it up.

Gently taking back his sword and flicking away the blood that hadn't yet dried onto it before putting it away, he answered, "Yes. It's not a toy, either so don't take it again."

"Fair enough," she sighed. Her voice was unwavering but it still had the slightest hint of fear in it. "Still…why would you kill someone?"

He shook his head, knowing she wouldn't understand even if he took the time to explain, and instead asked her a question. "How did you get your cheek scraped so badly? You really should go home and get it cleaned up. Besides, didn't your parents ever tell you to stay away from strangers?"

"I've only got a mom," the girl answered, frowning. "And she don't like me much. She doesn't want me to come back home for a while, cause she wants to spend some time with her boyfriend. _I_ don't like _him_ much… Besides, my name's Toklata. Now we're not strangers anymore."

He frowned as well. "So, you can't go home. Sorry. But would you really rather—"

"What's your name?" Toklata pushed on, timidly sitting down on a rock and swinging her feet back and forth.

"Ronin Takoda," he answered sourly, continuing to walk despite her invitation to sit down and chat. "And…if you have to follow me, we should at least get your cheek cleaned up. Come on. There's a steam up ahead." He sighed as her presence quickly brightened up. Giving in to a little girl was the last thing he had wanted to do, but he still thought that she would eventually go away.

--

A bit later, the two sat on logs by a small creek across from each other, one happily sloshing her feet around in the water, the other scowling. Thunder was still ominously rolling around in the sky, but rain was still yet to come as Ronin grudgingly used the bottom corner of his cloak, which he had dipped in the stream, to clean Toklata's scrape as well as he could. She kept peeking shyly up at him as he worked, and finally found the courage to mumble "So…" after several minutes of her quick glances.

"Do you have a fear of silence, girl?" Ronin snapped, reminding her that really she had managed only a few minutes of quietness before her mouth had again began to run. Frankly, he had liked her better when she had been scared speechless.

She stuck out her tongue, and _then_ shut her mouth, with a display of delayed obedience. Now she sat still staring at Ronin, who chose to ignore her round eyes, but started wiping his cloak across her face very roughly. And though it must of hurt, she didn't say a thing about it, though he sensed her abandoned fear come flooding back into her, rather dismally. Really, it wasn't his goal to scare her off.

Once her scrape was as clean as it was going to get, he wrung out his black cloak and looked painfully at the sun. "It's getting late," he sighed. "You can probably head back home now."

"It's not late," she answered, shaking her head. "It's only the end of fall, so the sun still sets pretty early. Around a quarter to six, I think. Not to mention it's not really all that close to the horizon yet. I'd say it's about…five thirty."

Ronin raised his eyebrows, slightly impressed with her, and opened his mouth to speak, before being cut short.

"I shouldn't be home until seven," she added shyly, as if waiting to hear the click of his sword sliding out of its sheath dangerously if he was unhappy with this news. He again opened his mouth to either answer her or try to console her, and was again rudely quieted when two young boys came crashing out of the bushes.

"There she is!" one cried, pointing at Toklata as her small hand unconsciously found its way to her freshly-cleaned cut.

He shook his head exasperatedly, wondering why it was always the ones who needed protecting that fell under his care, yet still eyeing the boys uncertainly; almost immediately deciding they weren't exactly pacifists.

"Leave me alone!" Toklata cried, stepping back slightly.

"You're such a baby, running away like that!" the other boy snapped, picking up a rock and chucking it at her, hitting her square in the jaw.

Ronin kept an emotionless mask upon his face, determined not to get involved. But as the two boys became more and more threatening, it became harder and harder to do so. Soon enough, they were kicking and punching at her, even hair-pulling, and while she was preoccupied with these, one even tripped her.

About then, he figured he had no choice but to intervene. After all, what wrong could he do if he was simply protecting a defenseless child?

He picked up the two boys by the back of their shirts with no trouble at all and glared at them. "I suggest you leave her alone," he crooned. His tone was icy as he set them back down gently and glared at them through amber eyes. The two stood stock-still, wide-eyed and terrified, just like Toklata had been several hours earlier. "Go home now," he added in a soft-but-creepy voice, grinning a bit, and the boys did as they were told, quickly and silently. He then looked down at the girl, expecting a thank-you or at least a smile but…

"I could have fought them on my own! Damn…I don't know how they found me way out here…"

"Don't be stupid," he snapped, grabbing her wrist and helping her to stand up. "Now, why were they chasing you?"

Toklata didn't answer, but lowered her head a bit, her hand moved slowly to her pocket. She remembered herself halfway there, though, and made it out to look as if she were only going to brush the dirt off her shorts.

Ronin held out his hand and she obediently reached into her pocket, pulled out a toy car, and dropped it in his palm. "Wonderful!" he growled. "I saved a thief!"

"Well…" she muttered softly, rubbing the back of her neck timidly, looking everywhere except at Ronin's face.

"Well what?"

"It's not fair! I just wanted something to play with!" she suddenly howled. But just as Ronin was readying himself for more noise, she stopped screaming and looked up at him thoughtfully, with an almost sarcastic sort of face. "I never thought they'd come after me."

"Girl, you _never think_, do you?" he asked softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Anywya, don't you have toys of your own?"

"Not really. I have some baby toys—I guess I was actually loved back then—but they're obviously not exactly nine-year-old material, ya know?"

He sighed at both his own problems and hers, but resolved to solve one of his first, and firmly pointed in the direction that they had come from. "You need to go home now, okay? I really can't stay in the sun any longer."

Wiping her eyes, she smiled and asked, "Are you a vampire?"

Ronin itched to tell her not to be stupid, but he knew that would be rather hypocritical. Instead, he ruffled her hair and turned her in the direction in which she had come. This time, the girl actually did head back, but not before turning around and giving him a quick smile.

--

Later that night, Ronin prowled the streets. Not secretly. He simply lacked the motivation to take the care to sneak around without being seen—his black cloak and piercing eyes didn't exactly fit in with the crowd too well, so the "blending in" option was already gone. Still, his empty stomach was practically pulling him somewhere that he could stop and get something decent to eat, and maybe some alcohol, too.

Still, even with thoughts of food on his mind, he stopped in front of a small shop with stuffed animals in the window. And before had time to think about anything other than a scowling Toklata, glancing up at him as she pouted sourly, he went in.

The strong scent of cinnamon and cloves enveloped him as he looked around the store, and he soon found his way to the small, soft plushies, in the center of various candles, magnets, and other gifts. Wondering cynically why in the world such a godforsaken patch of dirt of a town would have a gift shop, he picked up a bean-bag puppy plushie, thinking it kind of looked like the girl herself, with its big eyes and messy hair.

He shook his head slightly, trying to figure out why he kept thinking about Toklata. It had only been a chance meeting, and he figured he had apologized enough to her for getting the Hunter's blood all over her when he had saved her from the boys, so he wasn't in any debt to her. And, he'd been eager to get rid of her. Certainly, he didn't want to see her_ again_.

He bought it, reasoning that if he didn't see her within a week, he'd chuck it. Emotions were just too troubling.


	3. Chapter 3

Stealth and cleverness. Two qualities that are downright helpful to a vampire. Though, not Ronin, as he was still sauntering around in public, accepting the strange, startled looks that he was receiving, just happy that his sword was properly hidden by his cloak. To go out without it made him feel utterly naked, but to carry it around in plain sight would induce even more fear in the people he was passing.

After buying the plushie, he had managed to scrape up only enough money to buy a turkey sandwich, and was thouroghly regretting his decision to get it, as his stomach continued to protest at the lack of nutrients in it. If he could get some blood, he resolved, he could hold off his hunger for another few days—not that sitting around and waiting would bring him more money, but perhaps he could catch some fish.

Yes. Blood. He'd been away from civilization for so long that he was practically starving for the stuff. But the part of the small town that he was wandering was still all lit up and as crowded as a place with such a small population could be, so he turned back in the direction of the forest, deciding to catch one of the out-of-the-way houses on his way back to the cave that he had set up camp in earlier. It wasn't particularly late, but he wasn't particularly awake either, and figured that a few more hours of sleep before sunrise could only help him.

As he moved, his bag hitting against his back with every stride, reminding him of the stuffed animal that his supposedly hard heart had goaded him into buying, the town gradually thinned out. But all of the homes out that way were small, with a shabby appearance, and every time he found one between the trees and began to walk up whatever driveway they had, he would stop halfway, thinking for sure that he simply _couldn't_ bring himself to go into such a poor home to thieve away anything, least of all blood. Thus, he would march grimly on to the next one, where he would repeat the process.

Finally, when he was about ready to give up hope, he found a big, old house hiding between trees on three sides. It was ancient, and nearly as shabby as the others, but its size was enough to convince Ronin that he really, _really_ needed blood. So, heading up the drive, he took note of a screenless open window right on the house's porch.

--

Coincidentally, stealth and cleverness are also helpful to a small girl who likes to sneak around at night, exploring the attic and the fridge. And she _was_ putting them to use.

With soft feet, Toklata angled up the stairs that led to the attic. She loved the things she found up there, for no reason in particular. It was also so peaceful at night. No one fighting, no one-

"Damn!"

Toklata put her small hand to her lips, surprised at the thin, hissed curse and the small _thunk_ that had come slightly before it. Since she was often up in the serene night, she picked up on lots of small sounds, such as the scuffles of mice living in her walls.

But mice didn't swear.

Mice didn't even talk politely.

Mice squeaked, she knew this as a fact.

Quietly, slyly, she crept back down the polished wooden stairs, thankful that they didn't have a tendency to squeak, like the ones in the movies, and peeked around the wall at the bottom of the steps, seeing a dark cloaked figure kneeling on the ground and picking something up. Rather pathetically. She felt her eyes widen and a smile spread across her face. There was no mistaking that gleaming black hair, the black boots, the long cloak, and the sword handle that was poking slightly from inside of it.

"Ronin!" she hissed happily, but still quietly enough not to wake her mother. Much to her dismay, he didn't seem surprised. No, he didn't even turn around to face her. "Mister Ronin?"

"I heard you, girl," he snapped, cursing his horrible, horrible luck. "Honestly though, you're pretty quiet for a human. What in the world has you up at this time?"

"What are you doing in my house?"

"You wouldn't believe that I'm Santa Clause, would you?"

"It's not even Christmas."

Ronin picked up the chair he had knocked over and crossed his arms over his chest indignantly. Without a good explanation, there was nothing left to tell her but the truth. She honestly wasn't as stupid as she looked. "I asked you first," was the best he could come up with.

Toklata pouted a bit, also crossing her arms, and said, "I like the night. It's quiet and I can usually see good by the light of the moon."

"Well. You should say 'I can see _well_ by the light of the moon.'"

She let out an odd, small sigh, as if insulted, and then asked, "How old are you?"

He felt his eyebrow twitched at her randomness. "A true lady never asks a man's age."

Her eyes narrowed visibly. "Isn't that supposed to be the other way around?"

"Damn you with your annoying questions," he barked, but still in a hushed voice. "I thought I'd finally gotten rid of you earlier."

As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake. Her eyes, those puppy-ish turquoise things, dimmed and her smile faded away. She lowered her head to stare at the ground.

"Oh, girl, don't cry." But his voice didn't come out quite as softly as he had wanted it to, and he had sounded like he was scolding her. This made her even more upset.

"My mama said something almost like that earlier," she explained sourly, a painful grin coming back over her lips now. "Seems I'm really good for nothing."

Ronin sighed, remembering his own wretched human family. "I…I'm sorry, gir—Toklata," he sighed, kneeling down to see her better. "You're the first person I've come across in a while who's willing to talk with me without making death threats, so I should be grateful." With that, he pulled off the small sack that hung over his shoulders and onto his back, and rummaged through it, finally grasping the cheap, scruffy stuffed puppy. "Look. See, I was thinking about you. I got this for you."

She took it slowly and wiped her eyes, smiling genuinely again and rubbing it's soft fabric on her cheek.

"Now, you should be in bed. Yes?"

"But why--"

"I'm not going to rob you, I promise," he laughed, turning her around and ruffling her hair. "See, I'm just really poor, and I thought I'd sneak in for a drink."

Without further protest, she began to sneak in the direction of what Ronin assumed was her room, mumbling a dejected, "Thank you," as she rubbed her eyes. He smiled too.

Not the usual arrogant grin. No, this was a real smile.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N- hmmm…relationship is finally developing…now; the actual plot will begin to form! Mwaha! Plus, this chapter I try my hand at the cliffhanger thing. …Oh and thanks to my few reviewers. I would like some more. wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Disclaimer: insert witty disclaimer here

Scratching. A pencil against paper, maybe.

Ronin's eyes snapped open. He unsheathed his sword and pressed it fiercely against the throat of the other presence.

_Back off! Back off, back off, back off!_ his mind said to him urgently. His sleepy vision started to clear, little by little, and he suddenly realized that his sharp katana wasn't pressed against another damn vampire hunter, but a startled Toklata.

She was absolutely terrified, and Ronin found that he was too. He could have killed her. Slowly, he took the blade away from her. He saw scattered papers and, sure enough, a short, gnawed-on pencil on the dirty floor of the small cave. Her knees shook, and Ronin feared she would faint before he could offer an explanation, but she held strong.

"W…why did you…do that?"

Ronin drew back completely now, clutching his head, trying to think of a decent answer, or at least a clever retort. "How did you find me?"

"Why do you always answer my questions with more questions?"

"You've got a pretty sharp tongue for someone who just narrowly avoided getting her head chopped off," Ronin snarled, slightly irritated as he noticed the golden rays of sunlight coming through the cave's mouth. "Urgh…What time is it, anyway?"

"Prolly after four," she answered warily. "I got out of school at three. And it must have taken me a good hour to find you. I was doing my homework when you…" She couldn't bring herself to say "nearly murdered me", Ronin suspected, and he couldn't blame her. Instead, she bunched up her shirt in her hands and asked, "Did you want to kill me, Mister Ronin?"

Again with those difficult questions. No, he hadn't meant to kill _her_ specifically. But he _had_ meant death to whatever presence was in the cave with him, someone who he had automatically figured wanted him dead, so yes, he had meant to kill her, in a way.

Could he really blame himself for being so jumpy, though? Didn't everybody want to kill him these days? Everybody but Toklata?

No, it wasn't a question, it was a fact. Everybody but Toklata.

He gripped his head harder. He had almost killed her. He would have killed her if not for that little voice that had told him desperately to back off.

Does it hurt to go insane? Does it hurt to become sane again? Does it hurt to welcome back long lost emotions? And which one was happening to Ronin Takoda?

"Are you okay?" Toklata looked genuinely worried, her eyes full of concern.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Ronin finally sighed. "You surprised me, that's all." Silence, for a while, then Ronin went on. "You shouldn't stick around with me, girl. It's dangerous. You'll just end up getting killed, whether by me or by someone trying to hurt me."

"But I like you!" She sounded upset again. "Who would want to hurt you? I don't want to leave, I just want to stay with you forever."

"Don't be stubborn, baka! Use your head! You've got a full life ahead of you! I can't risk taking it away from you!"

Toklata looked at her feet, defeated. "Can I just stay for today then? And will you explain some things to me?"

"…Yeah…I guess."

They sat there for a good two hours, Toklata across from Ronin, wide-eyed and amazed, as he answered _all_ of her questions. He hoped this would help her understand why she had to leave him alone. She had made herself very comfortable on his lap by time they finished.

"Wow. So you're a real vampire," Toklata sighed, looking up into his golden eyes. "That explains a lot of things."

"You're not scared?"

"Why should I be? After you just told me all that stuff, how you don't kill people you drink blood from and stuff."

"You use the word 'stuff' too much," Ronin sniffed, pushing her off of him and standing up. "It makes you sound unintelligent, though I suppose that is fitting."

"One more question. Why are you always so sad…or angry…or whatever you are?"

A painful memory wriggled its way into Ronin's mind, but he quickly pushed it to the back of his head again. He changed the subject. "You should get home now, but walking through the forest while its dark isn't a wise thing to do…still there's no use of cowardice. You'll be fine. Go on now."

She nodded obediently and gathered up her things, looking a little forlorn, knowing she couldn't come back tomorrow, knowing she was going to be alone again. Ronin sent her on her way, watching her until the trees swallowed her, then he went back inside the cave, thinking he would stay here a bit longer.

_The woods are dark, but not scary_, Toklata thought to herself, not in any hurry. In fact, she thought she might stop by a steam and…cry? Again? Alone again.

She heard running water, and confirmed her thoughts, heading towards the sound, finding a clean, well-hidden stream. Kneeling on the rocks around the rather wide creek, she glared at her reflection.

A strong hand wrapped around her left wrist and pulled her off the ground. It hurt to be dangling by one arm.

"Ronin?"

"Guess again."

katana- a long, slightly curved Japanese sword.

baka- idiot, stupid


	5. Chapter 5

A/N- Greetings, constant readers. Yes, the plot develops, finally.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A strong hand gripped Toklata's wrist and pulled her up by it, so she was dangling above the ground.

"Ronin?" she muttered, hoping hopelessly that she was right.

"Guess again."

She looked up into a scarred face and felt a chill run through her. It was cold and nasty, kind of like ice with mud frozen into it. He had pale blue eyes, also like ice, and he wore a falsely sweet smile that was apparently supposed to be comforting, but just made Toklata feel she had gotten herself deeper into something that she shouldn't have been involved in to begin with.

His face seemed slightly familiar.

"Are you gonna kill me?" Toklata found that she was meeting a lot of people who she had to ask that as a sort of introduction lately. This man looked even less friendly than Ronin had after he'd just killed someone. She wanted to get out of his grip, but knew that even if she did, it would be impossible to outrun him.

The man chuckled, which wasn't a comforting sound. "'Course not, girlie. I just need you to do one little favor for me." He put Toklata down, slightly surprised when she didn't try to run.

"What's that?" she asked cautiously. She had not intention of trusting the shady man.

"I need you to tell your vampire friend something."

"Ronin?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "What do you want me to tell Ronin?"

The man grinned, then, suddenly; he lashed out and punched Toklata hard in the face. She stumbled back and toppled over herself, clutching the place where she had been hit. It was bleeding horribly. The same place as the scrape from the day before.

"You tell Vampire Takoda that that's from Konosuke," he growled, before taking off into the darkness, bushes rustling with his exit.

Toklata wasted no time gawking. She picked herself off the ground and, still clutching at her cheek, turned quickly back into the direction from which she had come, back towards the small cave. She thought only of warning Ronin of this 'Konosuke' man, whoever he was.

Running as fast as her short legs would carry her, Toklata reached the cavern in a matter of minutes, calling Ronin's name and jumping on top of him when he came into view, sobbing.

"Oh, Ronin!" she wailed. "I'm sorry, sorry, so, so very sorry!"

Ronin shook her lightly. "What the hell are you talking about, girl? What happened to you?" He touched her cheek softly and she drew back from him, stuttering out all sorts of words. Tired of her babblings, he shook her a little harder.

"Kono…suke!"

He dropped her. Breathing heavily he asked, "W-what did you say?"

"A…a man named Konosuke did this," she managed to gasp out. "Said…said it was a message to y-you. Ronin, are there really people…people out there who want to kill you?"

He managed only a grim nod, but his mind was racing.

Shinobu Konosuke was back with a vengeance.

00

Ronin remembered the last time he had seen that man. He sure as hell didn't want to, but he did all the same. Konosuke was quite the vampire hunter. He was the proud assassin of Jaden Takoda, Ronin's own master, and his namesake. And ever since he'd killed her, Konosuke had been after Ronin's hide as well.


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you okay, Ronin?"

"…Wh…what?"

"You look white," Toklata said, after a long pause, attempting to put her hand on Ronin's forehead.

He pushed her hand away half-heartedly, deep inside of his own thoughts. _Jaden, Jaden, Jaden_, he mused. _Konosuke…My heads a swirling mess. I can't think straight. What's real and what's an illusion?_

Ronin looked to his side and could've sworn he'd seen his mentor sitting there next to him, green eyes shining and a scowl plastered upon her face, but only for a few seconds. He blinked, and it was all gone, just Toklata couching next to him, looking worried and holding her cheek.

"So…this Konosuke…are you going to fight him? I mean, you're stronger than he is, right? Because you're a vampire and all."

Ronin didn't even think before answering, he just closed his eyes and leaned back against the cave wall.

"No, I won't fight him. From where I stand, it seems pointless. It seems unlikely that he'll come after me, so it seems best to avoid a fight with such an obvious outcome." He managed a half-hearted arrogant smirk to assure Toklata that this "obvious outcome" would be his victory.

She looked at him in a way that made her face seem at least twenty years older, with narrowed eyes and drawn brows. "I honestly can't tell if you're being wise or being cowardly," she scowled, her features returning to their normal, childish look after a few seconds.

"That's a pretty intelligent sentence. And here I was thinking you were a complete idiot. Surprised I haven't been hearing you say _ya'll_."

Either she hadn't heard Ronin's snide comment or she chose to ignore it, as she curled up like a cat on the edge of his long cloak. He immediately ripped it out from under her, though, and sent her flying. She giggled a bit at this.

"What?" he snarled teasingly. "You think that's funny? You little freak. I would send you home, but there are scarier things than Konosuke out there. So you can stay here for the night. Your parents might be worried, though. I could take you back."

"I already told you; I don't have a dad, and my mama 'prolly hasn't even noticed I'm missing," Toklata scowled, leaning back and not sounding nearly as sad as she should have.

"Stony heart," Ronin snarled, pushing her over.

She tried to push him back and failed, so she instead jumped on his back and attacked from there, tying his shoulder-length black hair into knots. "Me? Stony heart? You're the one who just sits in this cave all day…night…whatever. Don't you have anyone to protect or to at least stay with? There's more of you, right?"

Ronin gently slapped her hands away. "I'm strictly a loner. I don't much like the company of other vampires…or humans, for that matter. I don't mind the occasional stray wolf, though. They're lovely creatures. They're very friendly with vampires and they'll walk right up to you. Occasionally I'll go to—Are you ignoring me?"

He turned to find Toklata facedown on his shoulder, her slow breathing suggesting she was asleep. Well, that and the fact that she was drooling.

Sighing at her childish metabolism, Ronin unhooked her legs from under his arms and set her down lightly, covering her with his cloak.

_What an awful life she has_, Ronin thought, watching her toss and turn a bit. _Running around in shorts that are too big for her and being chased by little boys who just want to beat her up. And now she's, already involved in this big mess with Konosuke and…and she's still smiling. How naïve._

He got to wondering whether or not Konosuke would truly leave him be, thinking that he'd really have to leave his cozy hangout in order to not involve Toklata anymore than she already was.

She had a miserable life, yes, but there was hope for her yet. Ronin would never forgive himself if anything happened to her now.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N-Um, yeah, a note about Ronin referring to his mentor as "Master"…well, think that as in "master/apprentice" relationship. It's only the effect of too many Rurouni Kenshin fanfics, I assure you. Anyway it's merely a respectful term for "teacher"—don't take it the wrong way, like Toklata.

Chapter Eight: Failed Student

"_Ro! Run, Ro!"_

"_I can't…I can't leave you! That's downright disloyalty-"_

Bang!

"_Master!" _

_Random, disconnected thoughts._

_Her blood looks black in the darkness—Don't let her die, please gods—Then what will I do—Jaden, master, mentor, sire, they all mean the same thing to me—they're all the same person—she can't die—that man, he has a stake—what, shattering her wrist wasn't good enough—he's going to kill her—_

_Blackness._

0o0o0

Then, there was Toklata.

She leaned into Ronin's face, her hair tickling his nose. She looked concerned, maybe even a bit scared, but her eyes were calm, mature pools of cerulean. Just the sight was reassuring.

"Tell me," she said, sitting almost comically upon his chest. "Do you have nightmares?

Ronin guessed that Toklata was already well aware of the true answer, and was simply testing him to find out how truthful he was. He decided not to bother with the answer, and to instead interrogate her right back, pushing her off of his chest.

"What did I say?" he asked. There wasn't any immediate answer, so he asked again, sternly this time. "It's really important that I know what I said, Toklata. What did I say?"

She looked into his amber eyes, biting her bottom lip as if she were trying to remember something that happened years before. Finally she opened her mouth to speak, but her words came out confused and jumbled.

"I don't understand it, Ronin. You're no slave. So why in the world do you—no—why in the world _did you_ have a master?"

It took Ronin a minute to figure out what she was gibbering on about, before locking onto the fact that "master" was a fairly old term. It was easy to interpret the wrong way. Hell, a lot of vampires hadn't even understood why Jaden had insisted her call her that, so why would he have expected Toklata to understand?

Of course he hadn't even known what he had said, so it's not as if he could have planned a lesson ahead. He hadn't had these dreams—these nightmares—in quite a while. A decade, at the very least.

_Wait_, Ronin's mind snapped at him. _You've managed to keep these away for…a decade! Where have you been, buddy? I'm surprised you didn't commit suicide. What brought you back?_

He focused on Toklata, who had dropped her gaze and had apparently found something very interesting on her flip-flops to stare at.

_Ah. I see. You let her sleep on your cloak, though?_

_Huh?_

_Your cloak, she's using it as a blanket._

"Hey, you brat! Get off that, you're getting it all dirty!"

"Answer me then!" Her willful eyes once again locked onto his own. They had an almost skeptical look.

"Um…I said something about Master, then? Rest her soul."

"Her?"

Now she was just being annoying again. "Yes," Ronin sighed. "And she wasn't a slave driver, she was my mentor, my _teacher_. Her name was Jaden Takoda."

"Takoda," Toklata echoed, still clutching Ronin's dirtied cloak so hard that her knuckles were white. "That's your last name, too."

"That's right. I took her last name and changed my name from Roden to Ronin when she…died."

She looked puzzled, as if Ronin had suddenly declared he was the Queen of Switzerland and had began river dancing. "Only two letters changed! What's the point of changing it at all!"

"There's a hell of a lot more to a name than you'd know," he replied calmly. "Roden simply means 'red valley'. That doesn't say a thing about me."

"Then…what does Ronin mean?"

He looked away from her, unsheathing his sword and examining it carefully. Toklata was about to give up and drop the whole subject of the nightmares when he muttered his name's meaning.

"Ronin: masterless samurai; failed student."

There was a long, very uncomfortable silence. The air was so thick with tension; you could almost cut it with a knife. Toklata finally decided she just couldn't stand it anymore and bunched up Ronin's cloak in her arms.

"I'm going to go wash it, in that one stream. I'm missing school, so I think I'll feel better if I do some work."

"Yeah," was Ronin's half-hearted, weak-sounding reply. Now he knew. It did hurt to get your long-lost emotions back.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N- Poor Ronin, he keeps having nightmares! Kinda makes you wonder why he sleeps so much, huh? Oh well…

Oh, yes and for **DSgurl1123**: Toklata's age…well, yes. In the ToklataXRonin pairing sense, she should be older. But they're not intended to be lovers (no matter what Toklata says), if that's what you were thinking. If not…well…Darren couldn't have been too much older when he was blooded, and her being so optimistic and naïve just kind of adds to the whole thing.

Chapter Nine

It never occurred to Toklata that dragging Ronin's cloak across the ground as she walked towards the stream would make it even dirtier. In fact, she hadn't even wanted to wash it in the first place, and was pretty sure that he had known this as well.

Ronin, it seemed to her, was not at all the man he made himself out to be. He was not at all a cold, heartless _creature_ who'd kill whatever was unlucky enough to cross his path. Not at all.

Ronin, it seemed to her, was in fact just a very, very sad man.

She wondered why in the world Konosuke was coming after him at all. Konosuke himself couldn't be so bad deep down, she thought, and he should go find himself a wife or something.

She stopped, closed her eyes, and implanted a picture into her head.

_It was sunset. Konosuke got out of his shiny new car and waved to his neighbor, Ronin, who smiled back. He wasn't dressed in his usual dark attire, and was lacking the sword he seemed so fond of. Konosuke too seemed much more welcoming. An older Toklata stepped out of a nearby white house, pranced over to Ronin, and pecked him on the cheek (as her older self was tall enough to do so). He looked back fondly at her through soft eyes for a few moments, before completely forgetting Konosuke and sweeping her into his arms and…and-_

Crash-landing back on earth, Toklata felt her cheeks reddening and pulled Ronin's cloak up to cover her face from no one in particular (though she did check to make sure nobody else was around before folding the black fabric again in her arms and continuing towards the stream).

What had that been? It had began merely as a better relationship between Ronin and Konosuke (i.e. they weren't trying to kill one another), but it somehow turned into a _perfect_ relationship between _her_ and Ronin.

She pictured herself running back to the cave, Ronin's clean cloak in hand, jumping up into his arms and exclaiming "I love you" over and over again.

Imaginary Ronin had a bitter reaction to this, grasping her by the throat and leaving her in a bloody lump on the hard, rocky floor.

_No_, she told herself sternly. _No, didn't I just get through telling myself that he wouldn't do something like that? But…surely he wouldn't be too pleased with the idea…_

Toklata brushed the image aside and replayed the whole situation in her mind. This time, Ronin set her down lightly and waggled a finger in her face for being silly.

_No, that's not it either!_

Deciding to try one last ending to her fairy tale, she restarted the moment right at the part where she assaulted the sleepy-eyed vampire and gushed her feelings all over him. Finally, the desired result came, as Ronin pulled her closer, his eyes twinkling like gold pieces. "_I love you, too_," was his whispered reply. He pulled her head up to his own, so it seemed that their height was matched, and pressed his lips firmly against her own, breathing warm air into her mouth—

"Hey, what's taking you so long?"

Nearly jumping into the real Ronin's arms in surprise, Toklata turned deep crimson at the sound of his voice, thankful that he was a vampire, not a mind reader.

"Jeez. Daydreaming?" Ronin continued when she failed to give an answer, noting the obvious redness of her cheeks. "Oh, and about what? A boy, perhaps?"

"Uh…um, Mister Ronin, I don't think you should be out in the sun," Toklata finally gasped, quick to change the subject.

"You'd think right," Ronin sighed, still clueless about the subject of Toklata's fantasies. "But I'll be okay; for a few hours at least. And I got a little worried about you, with Konosuke lurking around and all."

Her heart fluttered at this, Ronin had been _worried _about her, and he openly admitted it. She didn't think that _anyone_ had ever worried about her.

And this wasn't anybody, this was a supposedly coldhearted vampire…

She felt her the color in her face rise again and snapped at Ronin. "Don't worry about me so much, I can take care of myself. You're just a big softy, huh?"

Ronin lifted her up by her shirt and growled in a low voice, "You wanna swing that one by me again, girlie?" Toklata kicked him in the stomach, which only succeeded in making him laugh a little bit, before he released her shirt and let her drop the two-and-a-half-foot difference in their height.

"You're not worth my trouble," he mumbled, turning around. "I'm going back to the cave, now, so hurry up! If Konosuke gets a hold of you, I'm not coming to your rescue!"

"Yes, sir!"


	9. Chapter 9

Grim foreshadow is one of the worlds greatest ironies.

When Ronin had warned Toklata not to get caught by Konosuke, it had all been in good fun, just a little taunt to make her hurry up with his cloak.

By time Ronin got back to the cave, being out in the sun had completely drained him of energy. He wouldn't have shown it with Toklata around, but the huge fiery orb really took quite a toll on his body whenever he felt the need to walk out into it (or was forced into it by, once again, those damned vampire hunters). The fact that he had always preferred the darkness over the day, even when he had been human or a half-vampire, didn't help to make him any fonder of it, either.

He groaned and threw himself one the ground, cursing as his head bounced off of a rock. Sleep pulled at Ronin's eyelids, threatening a slumber he was afraid he wouldn't come out of; that's how tired he was.

The night before, he had fallen asleep shortly after Toklata, but had been waking up on and off throughout the night. It felt odd, to him, to be sleeping during the night. Then, once he had finally gotten settled, the nightmares had come.

And now all that missed sleep was beginning to catch up with him.

It can't do any harm if I just drift off for a bit… 

Footsteps. Heavy footsteps.

"Ronin!"

Ronin mentally cursed himself, his eyes snapping open at the sound of Toklata's panicked voice. He was met with cold eyes and filthy dirt-smeared blonde hair.

He had a terrified looking Toklata slung over his shoulder. She was wailing, but doing everything in her power to hinder him; kicking and clawing. It was apparent that this alone wouldn't stop him when he growled, "Dammit, girl. I wanted to wake the vampire up."

Ronin rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, and smacked himself lightly to make sure he wasn't dreaming. When he was absolutely positive, he spoke in a slow, careful tone of voice. "Konosuke…she has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with this…you let her go and I'll—"

"The way I see it," Konosuke replied, "you're in no position to bargain with me, so don't—Shut up, you!"

Toklata, who had been quietly sobbing throughout it all (not to mention still kicking Konosuke's back), suddenly shrunk at the sound of the huge man snapping at her so suddenly.

"Apparently the vampire's got you on a leash," he spat. "Well, that's good for me. I'll be keeping you for a while."

"Konosuke…" Ronin still had his gently urging voice. "There's no need to—"

"I told you, you're in no position to negotiate with me, Takoda!" Konosuke's sharp voice dropped a few levels. "And it wouldn't be any fun…if I didn't get to toy with you a bit…before I killed you."

"Don't be cocky, Konosuke. If you hurt her, _I'll_ be the one who's going to do the killing."

The Hunter looked a little surprised at this, mostly because of Ronin's absolutely vicious tone of voice. Ronin's eyes wavered over to where his sword should have been, but found it nowhere near. He nodded slightly to himself, deciding to try to just claw at Konosuke while he still had that look of surprise.

Unfortunately, Konosuke had noticed Ronin's all-too-eager eyes searching for his stolen weapon, and anticipated whet the vampire planned to do next. Just as Ronin lunged for Konosuke's throat, he whipped Toklata out in front of him by, again, the back of her shirt, as a sort of shield.

Ronin pulled back immediately at the sight of her, and Konosuke grinned.

"Ah, so you really do seem to care for her," he said mockingly. "Tell me, Takoda, will you fail to protect her, just like you failed to protect your dear Jaden?"

"Don't let my master's name ever pass your filthy lips again," Ronin growled dangerously. "Or I'll personally—"

"Careful with the threats, there's a child present, rememb—"

Toklata took this as the perfect opportunity to kick Konosuke in a very delicate spot. He did wince and crouch in pain, but he never dropped her, never gave Ronin a decent opening to attack.

"Vampire-hugging wench," he mumbled under his breath, gripping onto Toklata's shoulder and squeezing hard.

She winced, and Ronin growled at Konosuke.

"What. Do. You. Want?"

"I," Konosuke started, innocently enough, "just want to slice you into itty, bitty pieces…slowly. Your other option is…" He grinned down at the girl, who now had begun to shake, that he held in his tight grip, and then laughed. "You look so…so worried, Takoda. Don't be—I'm not going to kill her; that would make me no better than yourself. However, I might be inclined to knock her around a bit, knowing that she seems to be so fond of you."

"Konosuke, please. Let her go. You know damn well how unfair that is. And not to me, to her."

"I'm sure she knew the risks she was taking, befriending a vampire."

Ronin's temper finally snapped. Abandoning his gentle voice and the hope of striking some sort of deal with Konosuke, he stood up. "She's so young! She didn't know what she was getting herself into! You put her down now, Konosuke, and I won't murder you!"

The vampire hunter seemed to be very amused with Ronin's outburst, and hadn't taken a single one of his words to heart. He still held Toklata out in front of himself as a makeshift shield, and she seemed to have calmed down, knowing that Ronin wouldn't hurt her, and that Konosuke wouldn't hurt her while Ronin was there.

Toklata wasn't following what the two men were saying too closely. She heard her name a few times, but the rest didn't seem to matter. She was absolutely positive Ronin would get her out of Konosuke's tight grip. He had a clever tongue, after all. And even if he couldn't talk his way out, Toklata had complete faith in his abilities as a swordsman.

She let herself drift into a comfortably hazy half-sleep, even though Konosuke was holding her to his chest, dangling her feet above the ground. She had been terrified before…maybe she still was, but there was a sort of relaxing about hearing bits and pieces of Ronin's hypnotic voice.

Two gunshots woke her up. She knew that she couldn't have been drifting for more than a few minutes, but she had, quite clearly, missed something.

Ronin was back on the ground, clutching at his legs, which were growing steadily darker with blood. Part of her wanted to scream for him, but some other part kept her silent.

And curious.

Toklata had never seen quite so much blood coming from one place. Even when she had seen Ronin kill a man, the blood hadn't just oozed out of him the way Ronin's was pouring out of his legs. It looked sticky and unpleasant, and she didn't like the way Ronin was cringing.

Konosuke, who had been holding Toklata up with a single hand, now held a gun in his free one. He was grinning horridly down at his injured prey, like a malicious cat would to a caught-but-not-yet-dead mouse.

"I'm going to take your buddy now," he said, still smirking, "before you can get up and chase after me. It won't be any fun if you don't have to search for your prize, so I can't let you see where I'm taking her. Maybe you'll be able to follow our scents anyway…but I'd suggest picking those bullets out of your thighs first. Don't worry, I'll take care of the girl."

As Konosuke turned, taking Toklata with him, she could've sworn Ronin was about to get up and attack him from behind. He gave his legs a quick glance though, and apparently thought better of it.

_No use sinking to the enemy's level, especially with my legs like this. With my luck, going after him now would practically insure infection, and, shortly after, my own death,_ the vampire mused to himself. _But as soon as I get these bullets out and the wounds washed, I've got a girl to save. Konosuke won't kill her, but I don't like the idea of them being alone…_


	10. Chapter 10

Konosuke moved through the woods with much less cleverness than Ronin, stepping on loose branches and carelessly sloshing through the creeks (getting Toklata soaked in the process).

She felt uncomfortable in his hands, being swung at his side, the way a young girl might carry a rag doll. She felt unsure, too. They had left Ronin, who had obviously been in pain, bleeding on the floor. Konosuke, the obviously cruel man who had caused him this pain, had scooped her up and was now carrying her God knows where to do God knows what to her. To make things worse, said man seemed to regard her as some sort of filthy creature who carried some tropical disease that would cause one's skin to fester, and only wanted to use her as Ronin's weakness.

She kept quiet, still rather rattled from seeing Ronin's skin turn an even paler shade than it had been before Konosuke had appeared holding her, he realized his sword was missing, and he had been shot in each leg. No, the pallid coloring of Ronin's face had occurred when Konosuke turned to leave, grinning ear-to-ear, dangling her in his grip.

Suddenly, her once airborne feet hit the ground. She looked up, into Konosuke's cold, relentless eyes for an explanation, internally shivering at his face. As a reply, he motioned to the ground around them. The two were no longer in the dense forest, but on the well-beaten dirt path that led right into the main part of her small town.

"There's going to be people around, so, unfortunately, I can't dangle you by your wrist anymore. Just smile and act normal. If you try to run away, I'll go right back to that cave and kill Takoda through means of blood loss. Understand?"

She managed a shaky nod, comprehending only the fact that if she tried to be a hero, Ronin would, without a doubt, die. Then, she thought of something else.

"Um, Mister Konosuke?" she asked, tugging at his shirt. "I'm supposed to be in school right now, so if people saw me walking around, and with _you_, they might get suspicious."

He didn't look too impressed with her revelation, but showed minor concern for his shirt, as he carefully plucked Toklata's hand off of it. "You don't think I haven't thought of this?" he scowled. "People are likely to know you haven't been seen since the night before the last. We're not going to walk right through the town. I know this way is longer, but we'll only run into a few people, so just keep quiet."

As a promise to heed his words, a silent nod was her only reply as she struggled to keep up with his long stride. They only ran into a few other people while they walked, none of which Toklata knew by full names. She wondered where Konosuke was taking her. Did he have some secret hideout? Or did he hang out in caves like Ronin? She hoped not. She was getting tired of sitting on cave floors.

They finally reached their destination just as the sun was setting for the day. Much to Toklata's relief, Konosuke lived in a house, like a normal person. It was small, like a cabin someone from a more northern part of the country would retreat to during winter months, but so was her own home, and it was cozy looking, too.

It was a clean, pale yellow color on the outside with lush, slightly overgrown grass in the lawn, and peeling white trim around the single front window. Toklata almost had to bite her bottom lip just to keep from laughing. It would certainly be hard for the nearby neighbors to believe this house was really the rented spot of a heartless vampire hunter.

That was another thing that added to the seclusion. The nearest houses were on the opposite side of the street, one half-a-mile before Konosuke's home, and the other cabin half-a-mile down the road from it.

Konosuke had unlocked his front door while she was looking around, and shoved her in as soon as she noticed this.

The inside of the house seemed just as feminine as the outside, with delicate baby blue walls and an ocean-colored carpet that matched her eyes. Contrary to Konosuke's hair and dress, it was spotless, with pillows neatly perched on a yellow leather couch and an identical chair and a wooden table against the wall. This room opened up into a kitchen and a bathroom. Leading the opposite way through the house, was a rather notorious looking hallway.

Of course, when Konosuke gripped her now sore wrist and led her somewhere new, it wasn't the cozy kitchen or onto one of the cute furnishings, but down said notorious-looking hallway.

It wasn't as long as one would expect of something so dark and forbidding. He stopped at the first door of two, opening it and standing there. Apparently, he was done with the shoving.

This time he actually kicked her into the room.

Toklata knew there was a reason he had crammed her into a small but pleasant room, instead of a dank basement or a cupboard. This reason soon revealed itself. The door of the room actually locked from the outside.

Slightly pissed, she kicked the door lightly, sending it a nasty look.

"Keep quiet!" Konosuke snapped from somewhere in the living room. Toklata made a face in the general direction of his voice, half-expecting him to burst in and beat her for it even though she knew he couldn't see her.

She could hear Konosuke moving something metal, maybe cooking. She tried to picture the man in an apron, but to no avail. As an afterthought, she wondered how long until Ronin would come, and if Konosuke would feed her in the meantime.

-- -- --

Ronin Takoda was, quite clearly, a broken man.

Konosuke had apparently decided that taking his sword and, in return, giving him two bloody thighs was a fair trade.

It was possible for him to walk, of course, but at no promising pace. Not to mention, the sun was only just setting, and the abandoned rays of light that were left behind after the sun disappeared behind a mountain would surely find it fun to screw with him even more.

He wondered briefly what Konosuke had done with his sword, but brushed that annoyance aside and concentrated on a more pressing matter.

Toklata.

Shinobu Konosuke was, to put it nicely, a heartless, sneaky bastard. Ronin could rattle off a whole list of things Konosuke could do to the girl without actually killing her. It had been cruel enough to use her as a human shield.

_Should've just killed them both, _he thought angrily, but a mental image of Jaden shook her head at him and waggled her finger, reminding him to be kinder.

Those kinds of thoughts, after all, were what created men like Konosuke in the first place.

Sighing softly, he picked himself up cautiously, wincing and gasping as a bolt of pain shot up his right leg. He crouched back down, reminding himself that he was, in fact, a vampire, and should be able to take this kind of pain, if not ignore it completely.

He should, but he couldn't.

And yet, he absolutely had to.

-- -- --

Toklata lying on the room's uncomfortable bed, staring into the nothingness of the perfect sculpted ceiling, when she heard the door unlock, and Konosuke, looking clean and well groomed, stepped in. She watched him with tired, wary eyes. He shut the door quietly behind him, turning slowly to face her.

He sat on the very end of the bed. Toklata sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, theorizing that decreasing her surface area would also decrease the chance of Konosuke lashing out at her. He stared at her for a few moments, finally saying, "Don't do that. Don't act so damn weak. Lay down if you want; I'm not going to hurt you."

She shook her head and, if possible, pulled closer into herself. Konosuke raised his hand to slap her, but stopped halfway there.

"Listen. I have to go to work—Yes, I have another job, I can't make a living on hunting damn vampires—And you're going to stay here. Alone. Here's the question. What are you going to be doing all night?"

"Nothing," she choked. "I'll go to sleep."

"Well," Konosuke continued, "if you can find some cereal or something, you can eat, if you're hungry. Or if you want to read something…Anyway, you know what'll happen if you try to scheme against me, don't you?"

Again, she nodded.

"And if Takoda somehow manages to find this place before I get back, and that's nearly impossible with his legs the way they are, so don't get your hopes up, then you'll have to keep him here until I get back.

Toklata was considering asking why in the world she would do something as stupid as that, when Konosuke got a thoughtful look in his eyes and, grinning, continued.

"Though I doubt you'd need to tell him to wait up for me. He'll be real pissed, I can guarantee that."

With a nasty chuckle, Konosuke got up of the edge of the bed, ruffled Toklata's hair mockingly, and headed out, not even shutting the door behind him. Toklata didn't release her body from it's own grip until she heard the front door close and lock. She wondered if that door locked from the outside too, but was afraid to go check, just in case Konosuke was waiting right outside to see if she tried to escape.

Suddenly chilled to the bone, she laid back down and burrowed underneath one of the scratchy comforters. It was funny to think that hunting vampires was actually Konosuke's day job.


	11. Chapter 11

Ronin had a dilemma. A big dilemma.

He had no idea where Konosuke was hiding out.

Sighing, he looked towards the east, checking that the sun wasn't going to poke up anytime soon. Blindly limping around wasn't helping his condition _or_ helping him get to Toklata, so he was pretty much at a loss. Not to mention how completely vulnerable he felt without his beloved katana (it had, in fact, belonged to Jaden at one point), even though he didn't need it to protect himself anyway (his nails also proved effective in this area).

To keep himself occupied while he searched places in the woods that Konosuke could be hiding in, he began naming off ways to kill the insufferable hunter.

_Lynching. Torture. Strangulation. Suffocation…um…what else? Boil him alive? That one's good…or maybe I'll take him to Vampire Mountain and sick the princes on him? No, it'd be more satisfying to do it myself. Not in front of Toklata, of course. At her age, seeing something like that can't be a healthy thing…_

He stopped to consider this. If it wasn't healthy for someone her age, it certainly couldn't be good for anyone at all. The whole idea was very confusing, and honestly, Ronin had preferred it when his conscience had been more or less absent.

Cursing his emotions for what must have been the hundredth time that night, he continued trudging along, wincing with each step.

He had dug the bullets out of his upper thighs with his nails, washed out the wounds, and bandaged them well, but his legs still hurt like hell. In the process, he'd practically torn them apart, and even through the bandages, blood was soaking into his pants.

He had noted the general direction Konosuke had taken off in earlier, and had headed that way, but was yet to pick up any signs of Toklata or Konosuke. Not even a slight scent. If possible, this put him in an even nastier mood.

--

Toklata also found herself entertaining a repeating schedule. Since she'd first fallen asleep, she had woken back up more times than she had bothered to count. And each time this happened, she would find herself bolt upright in her borrowed bed, her ears detecting every little creak and groan the house could offer.

She wondered whether she was actually afraid of the things that lived in the closets and under the beds of the house, or whether she was afraid of the man who resided there. She could just see him coming home frustrated from work and taking his anger out on the closest thing, which would most likely end up being her. That seemed like a very Konosuke thing to do.

Toklata's stomach let out a low groan, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in a day or more. She recalled Konosuke saying that she was welcome to make herself something, but wasn't sure of the time and didn't want to be awake when he came back from wherever he was.

Unfortunately, her stomach refused to let her fall asleep until it had something in it, so she grudgingly swung her feet over the edge of the bed, pulled open the door, and padded down the dark hallway. For such a tidy house, it certainly was creepy. It was creepy tidy. Like how dark chocolate turned sickly sweet after you'd eaten too much of it.

She ran her hands over the walls on either side of her, searching for a light switch, or a lamp, or _something _that might help her find out exactly where she was going at this point. She was careful with her feet, careful to be completely soundless. Suddenly, the walls ended, and she stumbled into what must have been that spotless den.

After regaining her footing, Toklata reached towards another wall and managed to find a light switch, flicking it on. It took her eyes a long few moments to adjust to the light, but once they did, she confirmed that she was, in fact, still in Konosuke's cabin-thing, and not in some horrible beast's belly.

Then she realized that she probably would have been more comfortable in some horrible beast's belly.

Brushing off lots of other sarcastic comments that she could tell the air around her, she tiptoed across the room, into the kitchen, quickly swiping an apple off the middle of the table. She stood for a few seconds, then dashed back into the living room, thinking the kitchen was, like most of the other rooms, very creepy, especially with only the light from the other room pouring into it.

This time she got a good look at the place, and noticed a small, dusty bookshelf in the corner. Recalling another one of Konosuke's offers, she sneaked over to it, apple in hand.

Konosuke had done quite well making it look like a perfectly normal man resided in the house. There was only an old, ragged vampire book here and there. The majority of the three shelves were covered in books about economics and domestic animals. She pulled one about hamsters off the shelf and dashed back to her room, not forgetting to turn the den's light off first.

Toklata pounced onto the bed, under the covers, reaching only her hand out to turn the lamp on the bedside table on. It took her a while to fumble with the switch, but she finally got the illumination she wanted after figuring out she needed to twist it, not push it in.

Konosuke returned several hours later to find her fast asleep, a book in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other.

--

"You didn't sleep well?"

"EEP! M-mister Konosuke! You scared me!" Toklata, who had sat up in her bed drowsily only moments before, was now completely awake, and unhappily aware the Konosuke was within two feet of her. She began to stumble through her emotions and answer his question, the words tumbling out of her mouth at an awful speed. "UmacctuallyIsleptokayIguessafterIgotallsettledandstuffandIgothungryandIpickedupthisbookabouthamstersI'veneverhadapetbeforebutIthinkI'dlikeonebecausetheyjustlookreallywarmandfuzzyand—"

Konosuke clapped a hand over her mouth, a little more roughly than necessary. "Shut up. Honestly, I couldn't care less how well you slept. I've got things for you to do, so get your vampire-loving ass out of bed and meet me outside in five minutes."

Toklata blinked as Konosuke left, startled at his outright hatred for her after he had at least seemed a bit kinder the night before. Maybe that was because he was going somewhere else, though, and he wouldn't have to put up with her. Sighing, she pulled herself out of the bed and drug herself into the blinding morning sunlight.

--

Ronin found that he wasn't the least bit sleepy when the sun poked up, despite his lack of sleep over the past few days. His head was bubbling with thoughts and memories. Not of Toklata or Konosuke, but of Jaden.

He remembered how her sly, narrow green eyes were a perfect compliment to her personality. She'd been incredibly clever, and had always known when he was up to something. Her hair was another one of her assets, black as midnight and even when tied back it was long enough to make a noose out of.

Ronin recalled not only Jaden's foxlike looks, but her entire attitude as well. In addition to her cleverness, she was strict, and sometimes even downright nasty to others. But boy, had she taught him a lot.

He blinked, coming slightly out of his daze, reminding himself that she had been gone for well over fifty years, and that reminiscing would only slow him down. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself to get some sleep, it would be good for his legs and the rest of his body as well.

Then it hit him.

Jaden had been gone for more than half a century. Konosuke had killed her. He must have been in his late twenties back then and now…now, he still didn't look a day over fourty.

There was no way in hell Konosuke could be a pure human.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Wow. I'm glad you all like it, constant readers. I realized that I'd gone quite a few chapters without an author's note. So today, I decided to let you all know that I am in fact still alive. And that's pretty much it. On to the story!

Actually, I seek your opinions. Of Toklata and dear Ronin. I've been wondering if Toklata is starting to become a weak character, and if Ronins getting to be an oh-my-god-my-masters-dead-and-now-I'm-all-depressed character. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. If it was, Kurda would still be alive.

_Now_ onto the story.

--

Dishes, laundry and gardening. Those were Konosuke's orders to Toklata. And that was only for the first half of the day (he was giving her until noon to finish them).

She had looked at him with a sallow face when he even suggested her lifting a pinkie—after all, she was his hostage, not his slave—but gave into his demands after a rather unusual threat. He hadn't threatened Ronin's outright death this time. This time, he had said, "You'd better be able to get those simple chores done. If you don't I'll beat you black and blue, got it?"

Toklata had nodded her head quickly and ran off to do whatever Konosuke wished of her, not thinking twice about saying no to him with the expression he had been wearing (an expression that quite clearly dared her to disobey his simple orders, because he would like very much to beat her).

Granted, there were very few dishes and she only had to carry the laundry to the washing and drying machines at the end of the hall, but she still didn't enjoy the work. She would much rather be hand washing Ronin's cloak, which was at least decently clean already, aside from her dirty feet marks. The work was simple but tedious, and very boring, especially for someone with the attention span of...well, a nine-year-old girl. And Konosuke's laundry was something no decent person would want to touch.

And, as if the surprises of his home would never end,Toklatafound a small, very weedy garden out back. She had thought that Konosuke had been joking about that. Sighing, she got on her knees and began to pull out the thick weeds, which was what most of the garden consisted of. It needed a good watering too, she found, as her bare legs met the dry, clumpy dirt.

All the while, she wondered if Ronin was okay. She also wondered if he was going to bring her backpack. She was pretty sure her flute had been in it.

By time she was donewith all of this(around 12o'clock, sure enough), her hands and knees were sore from crawling around and tugging on things, and she was incredibly relieved when Konosuke brought her a glass of lemonade, even if she didn't really want to be around the man himself.

He didn't do much to acknowledge her backbreaking work, just handed her the glass and herded her back inside the house, sitting her down on the falsely cheerful yellow couch. He disappeared behind the kitchen counter for a while. Toklata sat there patiently, sipping the lemonade all the while, until Konosuke reappeared from the small room and sat down opposite of her, with his own drink (though she suspected it wasn't lemonade).

"So," he said, attempting a smile. "You've done pretty well. Maybe I'll keep you around even after I kill Ronin Takoda." He noticed her pale at the idea and snickered. "Don't like the sound of that, eh? C'mon, I'll need a wife sooner or later…Oh don't look at me with those big, round eyes; I was kidding. Well, I see you're not amused."

For the first time since that morning, Toklata spoke up, her voice cracking from the lack of use. "Sir, w-would you like me to do something or…?" She trailed off, deciding to let Konosuke say what he needed to say.

"Yes, gir—What did you say your name was?"

"Toklata, sir."

"Okay, then." Again, he put on that sickening grin. "All I need you to do right now is answer a few questions—make sure you're drinking too, I can't have you dying of a heat stroke or something." He waited for her to lift the drink to her lips before continuing. "Your buddy, Takoda. You seem so fond of him. Why is this?"

She set the glass upon her lap and stared at him quizzically. "Why…do I like…Ronin? Because he likes me, I guess. Not many people like to hang around me."

Konosuke's eyes narrowed. "Whys that?"

"I dunno," she said, shrugging. "But Ronin does. Or at least, he doesn't push me away." She took a mouthful of her lemonade.

"You know him well, then?"

"What's there to know?" Toklata asked sleepily. She suddenly found herself becoming increasingly drowsy. Hoping it would wake her up; she kept on drinking, but later found that it wasn't helping.

"Any…any weaknesses he may have?" Konosuke asked, sounding innocent enough to Toklata's ears.

She felt herself slump into the chair. She knew she shouldn't be telling Konosuke Ronin's secrets, but felt too lazy and heavy to lie, or even to give outright answer. Instead, she just babbled out things she remembered about the vampire.

"He…um, he likes wolves. But not other vampires. Except, he really liked his master, Jaden. When he sleeps, he has nightmares about her…well; he says her name while he's dreaming, anyway. Um…he's really not as mean as he acts, and I think he's too nice to be a vampire. Obviously, the sun…um…"

"And you?" Konosuke asked, gently pushing for more. "Are you a weakness to him?"

"I'd like to say that I'm not, but yeah, I guess so." She began twiddling her thumbs.

"If I were to kill you, what would he do?"

"Mmm…" Toklata knew what Konosuke was doing. He was trying to figure out if it would be in his best interest to just kill her now. Unfortunately, it was. She tried to make up a good lie, but it seemed like only the truth would spill from her lips.

Deciding not to fight, she finally said, "He'd be sad. And mad at himself. I don't think...I don't think that he would put up much of a fight against you."

"Girl, you've just brought yourself into a corner."

Her body fell limp. The drugged drink crashed to the floor as she slumped farther into the chair and her eyelids became too heavy to hold open.

--

_Charna's Guts! How could I have let this pass me by! Damn it all!_

Despite the blazing sun, Ronin was ducking through the underbrush expertly, even with his thighs bruised and growing bloodier by the minute. He still had no idea where to even begin looking for Konosuke, but that didn't hinder him in the least.

Knowing that Konosuke wasn't completely human had a huge impact on his search for Toklata. It had drawn a certain urgency into finding her before Konosuke got sick of her and decided to drain her.

Of course, he didn't know whether the hunter was a vampire, vampaneze, or, possibly, something else, but that didn't seem to make a huge difference at this point.

Not to mention, Ronin found surprise at his own emotions about the girl. She was now seriously in danger, and it was completely his fault. It wasn't "she knew the risks she was taking, so I'm not going to bother with her," it was, "I'm so sorry, Master. I screwed up. A lot. And now, I'm finally going to fix it." Letting Toklata die seemed like an evil, soulless thing to do, and he simply couldn't allow it. Having her follow him into the woods that day now seemed like the beautiful beginning of some sort of salvation. The world did in fact have some pure souls left in it. That was good to know.

When Toklata had first gone out to wash his cloak, before the threat of Konosuke had come swiftly to its climax, he had (out of pure curiosity) gone through the backpack she had brought along with her. He found lots of seemingly pointless papers, but what really caught his attention was the battered flute case shoved precariously between a folder and a math book.

Apparently, life's ironies were never-ending. Jaden had been fond of carrying a clarinet around.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been quite as loving towards it. Many times he had tried to break it an half and/or smash it to bits, but each time it seemed the instrument outsmarted him.

Jaden could play well when she wanted to, but that hadn't been too often, as she had always been playing the highest notes she could get out of the stupid thing, which wasn't a very pleasing sound to his ears. "Squeakstick" had been it's almost affectionate nickname, and it had lived up to it many times.

So, naturally, the first thing on Ronin's mind was one question. Is the flute as obnoxious as the clarinet?

Smiling at that day, and at how everything had seemed so carefree not so long ago, Ronin continued dashing through the lush foliage, hoping he wasn't already too late to save future flutist and his _friend_, Toklata Samson.

--

A/N- I know, drugged lemonade, doesn't that just sound so dorky? Oh and to any offended clarinetists…I play the clarinet and, honestly, it's probably one of the easiest instruments to make fun of. But I do love it, especially the bass, so no offense intended. .


	13. Chapter 13

The last thing Toklata had expected was to wake up alive. Not that she was complaining.

Not only that, but she was completely unscathed, and wrapped in a much more comfortable blanket than she had been the night before.

"Ugh…" She rubbed her eyes sleepily, wondering what time it was. She first checked that Konosuke wasn't going to pop out of nowhere and start ordering her around, and then she analyzed her surroundings.

There was a light on in the room, but it was pitch black outside, with only a sliver of a moon to light it. She also noticed that she wasn't in the same room that she had been in the night before, but a much bigger one, with a huge bed and a cluttered desk in the corner.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes a second time, thinking that Konosuke must be working again. She had thought for sure that he was going to kill her. It did seem like the more practical option for him, to just get rid of her there and then instead of keeping her and giving Ronin something to fight for.

She wondered briefly if she was just flattering herself, did Ronin really care about her at all? For all she knew, he could be hundreds of miles away by now, laughing at the thought of Konosuke tearing her apart.

_No, no, no! _She told herself. _If you want him to come, you've got to have faith in him!_

She slid out of the bed and padded softly out of the room, her bare feet barely making a sound. The rest of the house was dark, except for a dim light coming from what she assumed to be the kitchen (she was still unsure where in the house she was exactly, but had a pretty good idea).

Sneaking down the hall on the very tips of her toes, she found the source of the light, not in the kitchen, but in the connected living room. The faint illumination was coming from a dying candle, which had already spilled wax (now dry) all over the coffee table. Slumped in the yellow loveseat was Konosuke, with huge blackish blue circles wrung around his eyes and bits of blonde hair falling into his tired, sallow face. He didn't seem to notice her entrance.

Toklata stood there for a long few moments, trying to figure out what to do, before, unbeknownst to herself, her feet led her to Konosuke's side.

"Didn't you have to go to work?" He failed to reply, just kept staring into the candle flame, so she continued. "Shouldn't you go to bed? You look real tired." She put a hand on his shoulder, but he immediately shrugged it off. "If you don't mind me asking, sir…why didn't you kill me?"

There. That was it. He couldn't ignore that question.

For awhile, he didn't answer, and Toklata thought of just pulling herself back into his comfortable bed and leaving him be, but he finally found the response he was looking for.

"I couldn't."

"W-what? Why not?" That wasn't the answer she had expected.

"I don't know. I just couldn't. You looked completely helpless and innocent and…and I just couldn't stand to hurt you."

Well, the fact that Konosuke actually had a soul just complicated things.

"Go back to sleep girl. You're still feeling the effects of that truth serum in your drink. It can't be good for your body. I guess all you can do is sleep it off."

She nodded, and whispered, "thank you," before quietly slipping back into her own room.

--

"You didn't happen to see a girl, about four and a half feet tall, really messy brown hair and pretty turquoise eyes? Maybe walking by a man…"

"I assume you're looking for Toklata Samson? Huh. Her mother figures she just ran away, but she's been gone for a few days now, and none of us have seen her. I've never seen you around here before. How do you know her?"

Ronin choked while trying to come up with a halfway reasonable answer. After all, he was running around in the dark in a flamboyant black cloak, asking people about a young girl made him seem like a pretty suspicious character, right?

"I…I'm just a friend of hers. Sweet girl. I hope she's okay." _I really, really hope she's okay. _"Well, thanks anyway."

Ronin kicked childishly at the wood floor of the shop, swearing softly. Asking around wasn't helping, and he didn't have anywhere to stay when the sun came up, which, judging by the clock, would be soon.

"You look awful."

He looked up. The shopkeeper, the woman he had been speaking to, was the one addressing him.

"Have you been up all night asking around about that girl? Because you look it."

Ronin nodded, hoping to get himself some positive sympathy, letting his hair fall into his face. "Yes. I was up all of today looking for her too. I love her, really. She's like a daughter to me." He wondered if tears would help, but reminded himself that he still had some pride. "You wouldn't happen to have anywhere I can stay for a few hours, would you?"

"Of course!"

Ronin smirked internally to himself, but retained his forlorn look on the outside. "Well…I don't have much money…and I don't want to trouble you…"

"Oh, not at all! You poor, poor thing! Worrying over that girl more than her mother does…Oh; my name is Leigh, by the way."

"Thank you. So much. I'll remember it. And I'll pay you back someday." All right. It hadn't been a total lie. He didn't think he'd be forgetting Leigh's good deed anytime soon, but he didn't think he'd be paying for it either. The young woman really had no idea how many lives she might me saving, even if she was losing money.

She'd been easy to charm. Ronin doubted it was the actual eye-batting, heart-melting show he had put on for her, but the fact that he had been searching tirelessly for a child. She didn't seem like a stupid woman.

Part of that opinion might have been because her eyes were the exact same color as Jaden's. Still, they weren't the same shape. They were rounder, and not as mean looking. And Leigh had frizzy red hair. Lots of it.

Ronin blinked and shook his head. There was no way he could be interested in a woman _now_, with Konosuke taking hostages.

She noticed him looking at her and blushed ever so slightly, turning from him and dashing into a back room. Ronin smirked. Hell, he almost felt like laughing.

Leigh returned several minutes later to find her guest looking rather conceited with himself. His warm golden eyes had narrowed into something that might be compared to a wolf's, and his arms were crossed over his bare chest. She did the same with hers.

"What did you say your name was?"

Her voice was skeptical. Ronin toned down his arrogance a bit, adopting that forlorn look again. "Ronin Takoda. I appreciate your hospitality, Miss Leigh."

"Ronin…is that…"

"It's Japanese. And I know what it means, if you were going to ask." Ouch. That sounded kind of bitter.

Leigh realized she'd touched some sore spot and, silently, she led Ronin up seven rather perilous looking stairs, to his room.

"My room's just down the hall," she said, motioning to a door not too far from his own guest room. "If you need anything—"

"I didn't realize I was intruding so much." Really? It was odd enough that a small shop like this was open this early in the morning, but she _lived_ in it too? And she was letting a complete stranger stay ten feet from her room? She was either very trusting, felt quite a bit of pity for him (the poor, limping man looking for the lost little girl), or was confident that she could get rid of him if he caused trouble.

"Would you like food, or anything?"

"No, but I really need sleep. I hate to ask, but I hope you won't disturb me. I'll be gone by nightfall, I assure you." With that, he shuffled into the room and slammed the door shut behind him, right in Leigh's face. Sitting on a battered bed, he decided to take a look at his legs before the sun rose completely.

Sore and lazy, Ronin simply rolled up his pant legs to get a good look at his thighs. He wished he could've washed his blood-soaked pants as well, but pushed that nagging thought into the cobwebs of his mind. The wounds were a horrible, ugly crimson around the place where the bullets had been precariously pulled out, and that was definitely his first priority at this point. He couldn't do much else with another _beautiful_ day drawing ever nearer.

Meanwhile, Leigh still stood right outside the door, contemplating on whether to throw her guest out or not. He was putting on some sort of false act, she knew that for sure, and he seemed pretty sneaky, too. Just his eyes hinted on that.

Then she decided he was simply a big jerk, and burst into the room.

"How could you just lie about—Oh!"

She saw the reason for his ever-so-slight limp clear as day. In fact, it was pretty difficult to miss his red, battered thighs clashing against the light green of the bedding.

"Your legs, Mr. Takoda! Wh-what happened to them!"

"It's nothing, woman, get lost, or at least call me Ronin." _Mr. Takoda_ made him feel _centuries_ older.

Suddenly, Leigh was right next to him. "Gosh, Ronin, what happened! You look like you got shot in the legs!"

Well, at least she was perceptive.

"I told you, it's _nothing_. Just a little scratch. I'm fine."

"So all of that limping, the pained looks—they weren't just acts. Oh, now I feel so guilty! I thought you were up to something…just…well, your eyes; they're…so sneaky looking. And I tried not to even think about that scar on your cheek. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." Considering some of the comments he had heard from Konosuke, he wasn't much offended by Leigh's worries. "Like I said, its no big—dammit, that hurts! What are you doing!"

"Hold still," she growled, poking and prodding at his thighs with what seemed like pointless annoyance at him (he figured that if anyone had a right to look that pissed off right now, it was definitely him).

"It looks infected."

Thanks for the great news, Leigh.

With those green orbs of eyes of hers, she looked into Ronin's.

"Tell me. What happened?"


	14. Chapter 14

"Ronin, what happened to you! Tell me what happened!"

"Leigh, even if I took the time to explain, you wouldn't understand," Ronin calmly insisted. There was no way he could spill his guts to another person.

"Don't you owe me something, Ronin? How about an explanation?"

Well, Leigh was persistent, he'd give her that. Though she was apparently also pretty ignorant, considering she hadn't noticed his sword's sheath sitting at the edge of the bed.

"Fine! If you're not going to tell me exactly how you got those wounds, tell me what you were really doing around here!"

Leigh screaming made Ronin want to scream right back at her. Fortunately, he was able to keep his voice level. "What the hell do you mean?"

"Why are you here really! That's what I want to know! You can't honestly be looking for that girl! So why—"

"That part was true, Leigh."

"Don't lie to me, Ronin!" Oh God. Her eyes were wavering. That threatened either tears or a slap across the face.

Sighing, Ronin took her hand. "Leigh, look at me. I'm not lying, I swear. Toklata is in an awful situation, and it's all my fault."

Leigh blushed and pulled her hand away sharply. "Don't try to charm me! If it was true, you'd have a story to tell me!"

"Leigh, I do have a story. But if I took the time to tell you, at the end you'd either think I was crazy or you'd be running from me."

"You don't sound crazy, and I don't scare easily," she insisted. "Ronin…"

Suddenly there was the soft sound of a service bell from somewhere downstairs. Leigh looked a little surprised at the sound of a customer, but had no choice but to answer it. She mumbled something foul under her breath and left the room to a smirking Ronin.

This time, he had the good sense to lock the door, with only a slight pang of guilt. After all, Leigh was letting him stay here, in her home, at no cost (of course, after their recent conversation, he felt his sleeping place was no longer guaranteed). He looked over the small room with slight interest, before his sharp ears registered a light giggling sound.

Curious, he unlocked the door and lightly padded out, towards the noise. It was coming from Leigh's room. He could hear her voice and several other voices drifting up from downstairs as he quietly opened the door to her room.

In the corner there was a smallish nightlight, and set against the wall was a single bed, with a lump in the covers.

"Ee?"

Ronin raised an eyebrow at the speaking lump, lifting up the covers to find a boy, maybe two years old, looking up at him with round brown eyes.

"Not Ee. Mean doggie."

"You mean a wolf?"

"Woof."

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Ronin lifted him up so they were eye level. "You got a name?"

"Kam," he said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah? I've got one too. Ronin."

"Woof."

"No. Ronin. _Ro-nin_." He scowled at the boy, but put him back on the bed when he heard Leigh's feet tromping up the stairs.

She first went to Ronin's room, peeked in, turned around, went into her own room, and nearly bit Ronin's head off upon finding him there.

"What do you think you're doing!"

Ronin backed away from her (slowly). "I heard a noise and I thought I should—"

"What made you think we're that close, huh! You can't just roam around people's houses half an hour after you've met them!"

Now pinned against a wall by Leigh, he closed his eyes and sighed. "Alright. Sorry. But if you thought I was a murderer or something, you wouldn't have let me into your house, now would you have?" How funny. She could call him that, had she noticed the—

"Well…hey…what's this?"

Too late. She grabbed for the sheath sticking out of his belt. He kind of _stumbled_ out of her reach, but the conversation certainly wouldn't end there. (Kam watched from the bed in amusement.)

"Well!" she demanded, clicking a heel on the ground. "What is it!"

"You really want to know, Leigh?" This certainly was tiring. Konosuke had stolen his sword anyway. What harm could showing her an empty sheath do?

She nodded fiercely, her hair bobbing with her head, and Ronin pulled the scabbard out from his belt, handing it to her.

Leigh looked slightly surprised, but regained her dignity soon enough and began to look it over. "What…what is this thing, Ronin?" She smiled tensely and gave a nervous laugh. "It almost looks like a…"

"It's a sheath," the vampire replied calmly. "For a sword—a katana, really. Okay? And no, I'm not going to give you the tear-jerking story that goes with it, so don't even bother asking."

Leigh looked a little shocked, and was about to send him back to his own room, or kick him out of the house completely, when Kam laughed.

"Woof!"

"He your son?" Ronin asked. His voice was its usual rough tone, but his eyes seemed to soften.

Just the opposite, this sparked quite a reaction from Leigh. "He's my nephew! My sister passed away! Do I look like the kind of woman who would be a single mother! And at this age!"

Honestly, Leigh was plenty old enough to be the boy's mother (mid to late twenties, Ronin guessed), and he didn't think single mother looked like anything in particular. He didn't say this to Leigh though.

"Hey, don't come down on me, woman! After all, I'm from a time when it was normal to have a family by your late teens."

"E-excuse me?" Leigh stuttered.

After realizing exactly what he had said, Ronin groaned right out loud and took himself back to his room. Leigh tried to follow after him, but he again managed to slam the door in her face and lock it before she could get to the doorknob.

--

"Hey, you gonna sleep all day!"

"Geh…Stop doing that!"

Konosuke looked both surprised and amused at Toklata's sleepy outburst, and even more amused at her awful bed-head.

"Do you need a comb?"

Toklata couldn't tell if he was really offering, or if he was just mocking the way her hair liked to stand up in the morning, so she kept quiet.

"No? All right, then." He took a more serious tone. "I've got things to do today, so just keep yourself occupied for a while. I don't care what you do. No scheming, though, got it? "

He didn't seem to have any intention of mentioning the night before, and Toklata preferred it that way. Bringing it up again might just remind him what a good idea killing her actually was.

He left the room soon after, blowing off her reply, as usual. Blowing a stay lock of hair out of her face, she decided exactly how she would spend her day.

Toklata first snuck into Konosuke's room and stole a shirt from the wooden dresser she had noticed the night before. She took off the clothes she was wearing and put the slightly ragged shirt on. It went down to just above her knees, but that worked just perfectly.

She threw the clothes that she had been wearing for several days now into the washing machine, glad to be rid of them, then pranced into the oceanic looking bathroom, locking the door behind her.

She stepped into the shower, turning the hot water on full blast and carefully washing all of the new cuts and scrapes she had acquired over the past week, thinking how good it felt after working in that dirt the day before and then _sleeping_ like that. In fact, she used every kind of soap she could get her hands on.

She cleaned her hair, too. It was naturally thick and uneven, so a few days without a good brushing left it a tangled mess. After shampooing and stepping out of the small shower, she dried it partially with a towel and brushed it in front of a mirror with a comb she found lying by the sink (a very tedious job).

The wash was done, so the (now much less grumpy and sore) girl shoved the clothes into the dryer and went again to Konosuke's bookshelf, this time taking out one of the vampire books to see how accurate it was. She plopped herself down on the couch and attempted to read, but most of the words were at least seven letters too large for her to understand (or pronounce). Her laundry was dry within a half hour, so she changed back into it and just ended up napping until Konosuke came inside from whatever he had been doing.

"You look like you're having so much fun."

Feeling refreshed, Toklata just smiled and rubbed her eyes a bit. "I'm hungry, Mister Konosuke. Can you cook?"

He considered her mood for a moment, perhaps thinking she was up to something, but replied, "No. I can't. Not worth shit, anyway. Can you?"

"No sir, not without blowing something up."

"Damn. Canned soup again."

--

"I really think you should call a doctor, Ronin!"

"And I said I don't need help! Leave me be!"

Ronin hadn't anticipated that Leigh would continue her argument with him, even with a shop top run and a locked door in between them.

"Ronin!"

"I'd be fine if you'd let me get some sleep!"

"Ronin, you're a stubborn, proud asshole, you know that!"

"I do!"

Leigh pounded her fists on the door, and Ronin simply listened with tired amusement. They said redheads were supposed to have such firey tempers, but that was such a cliché, that Ronin had never really paid attention to it. He'd met plenty of cool-headed-red-heads.

But Leigh…she lived up to the stereotype quite well. She sounded as if she might just break the door down and attempt to strangle him.

It was going to be a long, sleepless day.

"How old are you, Ronin! With a face like yours you can't be a day over thirty-five!"

That could have been considered a compliment. Maybe Leigh wasn't that bad after all.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N-This chapter, I want to try writing in first person from Ronin's and Leigh's POV. I had writers block for the past few chapters, so I decided to try something new. Tell me what you think about it. Oh yeah, I don't own CDF or monopoly.

--

-Ronin's pov-

It was going on six and the sun hadn't set yet, but I thought I could get myself out of that place while Leigh was occupied. She had a customer at the moment and I thought if I could…just…be…really…quiet—

"Ronin Takoda, what are you doing!"

That woman could've damn well been a vampire. Her ears had been picking up all of my whispered curses, and her eyes weren't bad either. I bowed slightly to her.

"Ah. Checking for shoplifters, your obnoxiousness."

She gave me this nasty look, but continued talking with her customer. During the day she had a few other people working in her small shop, and now she would probably tell them to keep an eye out for me too. Like I said before, she wasn't a stupid woman. She seemed intent on keeping me here until I got a doctor or gave her the story she'd been asking for.

I sensed her walking over to me. Honestly, she smells good.

"How old did you say you were, Ronin?"

Curse that woman. I'd never 'said' what my age was. That seems to be such a popular question with the people I've been meeting lately.

"Leigh, I'm a two-hundred and thirty-one year old vampire, and right now I want to drain you dry."

"Har har, Ronin. Now, _how old are you_?" Her voice had such a demanding tone, and I arched an eyebrow at her. It's a good thing she couldn't tell the truth from a lie.

"Would thirty make you happy? And how old are you?" I swiftly got smacked.

"You jerk! Don't ask me that!"

I could've dodged that easily, but chose not to, as it seemed to satisfy Leigh greatly. In return, I pulled the green bandana off her head and dangled it just out of her reach…So she kneed my in a place that _was_ in her reach.

I hadn't been expecting that, and she easily got her bandana back when I keeled over in pure pain.

Through the pain, though, I still managed to send her a rude gesture. "Damn you to hell, Leigh."

"I love you too, Ronin."

Satisfied, she stalked off, tying her bandana back on her head as she went.

--

-Leigh's pov-

Well, he damn well deserved it. Stupid, insufferable man. He ripped my bandana with those long (rather feminine) nails of his. It had been my favorite one, too.

I just walked off and left him there in that position, thinking he might stay there for a while. Kam found his way over to him and started poking him, too.

He seemed to be sneaking around an awful lot that day, even with those legs of his. I realize now that it was selfish of me to keep him there with me instead of letting him go look for Toklata, but I'd like to think of myself as more than just a hindrance to him after all that time he took for me. Besides, aren't love and selfishness almost the same thing?

It was around six, I think, and my shop isn't really all that busy even during rush hour (if this small town even had a rush hour), let alone at that time of the day, so I was starting to send some of my employees home. They're mostly teenagers saving up for cars, or who just wanted to earn some extra money, so they love it when I let them go early. I just kind of wanted to sit and talk with Ronin, try to get him to explain some things.

By then I'd already known there was something weird about him. That sword sheath just hanging at his side and some comments he made gave him away. At one point he said something about a licorice stick, which was the 1920's slang term for a clarinet. The _1920's_.

Naturally, I was curious, and I often found myself thinking about him throughout my work that day (much to my own dismay). So when I saw him stalking around I couldn't resist going over and poking fun at him, just a little. Kam just happened to finish the job for me. I made him stop, though, when I thought Ronin had had enough (no that you can tell through that emotionless mask he puts on his face).

"Come on, Kam. You're taking a bath."

"Woof," he argued, pulling on Ronin's hair.

"No," I insisted. "Bath. Now march, mister."

Kam moved towards the stairs reluctantly, but turned around and waved dejectedly at Ronin.

I told one of the workers that was still there to keep an eye on both the shop and Ronin while I gave Kam his bath (but mostly on Ronin), and followed my nephew upstairs to the bathroom.

I didn't even know Ronin was in there until he spoke.

"You wanna let me go look for Toklata now?"

He sounded slightly irritated, but so was I. I didn't know what was up with him and the way he thought he could prance around my home just because I gave him a room for the night.

Thinking that, something else struck me. What were my employees thinking? There was this strange man…at my house, _in my home_…and I wouldn't let him leave…

Exasperated, I pulled Ronin out of the bathroom, as not to disturb my humming nephew, closed the door, and screamed at him. "You know, if you'd just answer me, I'd let you go! Or maybe you wanna spend the night again, huh! Maybe you just don't want to leave—"

"Leigh, you're absolutely insane!"

I raised my hand to slap him, but he caught it and did the most idiotic thing I can ever remember _anyone_ doing.

He kissed me.

--

-Third Person pov, Konosuke's House-

"Well, what do you usually do when you're bored?"

"Play my flute…or a board game…or something! There's nothing to do around here!"

Konosuke noted that Toklata's initial fear had evaporated. Sure, he could send it flooding back into her anytime he wished to, but this more rebellious girl was much more interesting.

"Do you have a softball? A baseball, I mean?"  
"Nope. I might have Monopoly somewhere, though."

She perked up. "Do you wanna play with me?"

"What the hell," Konosuke said, getting up. "Let's go find it and we'll play for a few hours, if your attention span is that big."

Toklata followed him merrily down the hall, to a cramped closet in his room. He suppressed a laugh at her cheerful behavior; she was easy to scare and just as easy to perk up. At this age, it couldn't be mood swings, but that didn't exclude her from getting very angry very easily. Konosuke came to one conclusion: this girl had an incredibly unstable personality. And if Ronin did something stupid, like blood her, life among vampires could easily turn her into some _smiling assassin _thing.

While he was pondering, Toklata had pulled Monopoly out of the closet, dashed back down the hall, and was already setting up the pieces, fake money flying everywhere.

Sighing, Konosuke dragged himself back out to the living room. Sitting down across from Toklata, he picked a pawn and helped her sort out the money.

"When is Ronin coming?" she asked, about three minutes into the game. "I mean, he is coming to save me, right?"

"I'm glad you still realize you're a hostage, not a guest," Konosuke replied bitterly, and she shrank back a bit. "Get your mind off of Takoda. He'll come eventually. Give me the dice and just wait for him. Give me the dice first, though."

She did so, and the dull game began. Both were quiet throughout most of it, only speaking to get the other one's money or a property card. The game lasted for only about two hours before Toklata's mind began drifting to other things and she forfeited.

"Do you have anything else to do?" she asked, while picking up the pieces of the game.

"Go climb a tree or something. I'll attempt to cook something."

"Do you have any cd's I can listen to?"

"Some old stuff. Go look in the closet again."

"Yes, sir."

--

-Ronin's pov-

That was probably the most idiotic thing I've ever done, and to this day I have no idea _why_ I did it. The thing is, I did. And Leigh seemed to accept it.

It lasted longer than I planned, and Leigh was the one who finally broke it.

"Ronin…we've known each other for about twenty-four hours…"

"Yeah," I confirmed, in a so-what's-your-point kind of voice.

"I don't feel like this is right, Ronin."

"You're right. Maybe we should try without our clothes?"

Ouch. Should've seen that slap coming, vampire or not. "RONIN TAKODA! YOU PERVERT!" She wriggled out of the embrace I had her in and went back into the bathroom, slamming the door.  
Women are so weird.


	16. Chapter 16

-Leigh's pov-

Ha ha. To this day he'll still say he was only expressing affection for me.

I put Kam to bed (he fell asleep almost instantly) and found Ronin leaning on the wall right outside my door, looking rather nervous and kind of…well, embarrassed (still, it's hard to tell with him).

"Well," I demanded, looking into his eyes. "What do you have to say for yourself?" My voice was only above a whisper because I didn't want to wake Kam, but it sounded weak, too.

"I apologize if I offended you, Leigh," he said in a drone of a voice, like he'd rehearsed the line too much. I raise an eyebrow at him and he continues. "Okay, I'm sorry that I pretty much asked you to have sex with me. Better?"

Well, that blunt answer certainly had not been better, but I didn't think I'd get anything else out of him, so I let it go.

"But…" he continued, "If I asked more politely…would you consider the offer?"

"Ronin, you're pushing your luck."

"Ah, my lady, you don't push your luck enough. So that means I can go now? Time is wasting, Toklata could be dying as we speak, Miss Leigh."

"E-excuse me? She's _dying_?" I asked, eyes wide, I'm sure. I hadn't known it was anything that serious…and even if I had… I don't know. People tell me I'm selfish sometimes. "She's dying and you're hitting on me!"

Ronin backed away a bit. "You misunderstand. I said she _could_ be dying. Besides, I have no idea where she is."

"You moron!"

"Look, Leigh, she was kidnapped, all right!" he snapped. Through my perseverance, his story was coming out in little bits and pieces, though none of them made sense to me at the time.

"Oh, Ronin…We need to find her!"

"No. _I_ need to find her," he corrected, speaking firmly. "Meaning _you're_ not coming with me."

"Nonsense! Why can't I?" I snapped, feeling unwanted and useless.

"Because I don't want you to get hurt. No, Leigh, that's the last thing I want. So you stay here, I'm just gonna leave now…"

"I want to go with you. And don't you dare just walk off on me. You need a cool head to come along with you. I can tell you act on impulse." Well, that was true, but I certainly wasn't much of a "cool head" either, and Ronin noted this skeptically with an arch of one slim, black eyebrow.

"And your nephew?"

"I'll call a babysitter. Just think about it."

He seemed to consider it, and looked like he was thinking about something, so I just patiently let him brood.

"I thought about it," he finally said. "And the answer is still no. I love you Leigh, and I don't want any innocent people getting hurt on my behalf."

"Wh-what?"

His pale face showed a slight tinge of red. "Uh… I don't want any innocent people getting—"

"No, before that."

"The answer is still no."

"You, Ronin Takoda," I sighed, "are an impossible man. But I'm still coming with you."

"You, Miss Leigh, are an impossible woman, who is most certainly _not_ coming with me."

--

-Ronin's pov-

I didn't expect her to show me any loyalty after my little line, so I was slightly amused (though I was even more grateful) at her offer of help. Still, it didn't really sound like an offer, it sounded like something she was _very_ set on doing. Konosuke might hesitate on harming her if he knew that fact that she didn't actually know what I was, but I still didn't want to take any chances.

Unfortunately, while Iwas thinking, Leigh had apparently slipped away and taken advantage of my lapse. She came back and shook my shoulder lightly.

"I called the babysitter. She's on her way right now. And we," she snapped, linking arms with me, "are going on a date."

"You…you…sneaking, conniving, stubborn little—"

"Watch your mouth, Ronin," she teased happily, apparently enjoying this whole situation much more than I was. I didn't mind her company, but I was so afraid (one more emotion to keep track of) that she was going to end up dead somewhere (in which case my guilt would probably will me to take care of Kam until he turned eighteen—damn these emotions). Not to mention, Leigh tagging along almost ensured that she would find out what I really was. I didn't know why I was worried about this; I guess I was just worried about what Leigh would think of my vampirism. I could already imagine some of her worst reactions…

But I digress. Clearly, she wanted to come with me. And to deny her that would be cruel—and lets make sure I got this out of the way: _I didn't want her to come for her own safety._ Remember that.

The babysitter had come to watch over Kam and Leigh had paid her graciously and began chatting with her while I stood in a dark corner impatiently. After these—rather annoying—pleasantries, we left and I yanked her like a dog on a leash into the woods.

"Ronin," she snapped, using an irritatingly brisk tone with me. "What are we doing?"

"Get on my back. You're too slow." She didn't look too pleased with this comment, but did as I asked without further discussion. I couldn't flit with her, but I wouldn't have anyway, since I had no idea where I was going.

Leigh didn't say a thing the whole time, in fact, once or twice I looked back at her to make sure she wasn't asleep. But each time I did this, she had on the same determined look, with drawn brows and not the slightest hint of sleepiness. Some odd part of me felt happy to be carrying her around on my back; liked her warmth, despite my usual loner-ish behavior. Having her there urged me through a lot more, as if something in me was trying to impress her (maybe my Master had been right when she said I was someone who—personality wise—would be a teenager until my death). I covered a lot of forest and even thought to check some back dirt roads.

I still wonder to this day if Leigh is of Irish descent (I never bothered to ask her). Not because of the frizzy red hair, or the sparkling green eyes, but because of the luck she gave me that night. Maybe that's just superstition (certainly, I had never experienced any of the "Luck of the Vampires" that I was supposed to have…)

On one of the roads, I caught a distinct scent; a few days old but, clear as day to my senses. I had forgotten about Toklata's injured cheek. It could've easily torn back open and began to bleed. So this whole time, while I was searching for the slightest hint of Konosuke's scent, I should have really been sniffing around for Toklata's blood.

After all, I am a vampire.

Leigh tensed slightly when I came to a stop on the road. "What is it?" she asked. "You couldn't have found something. I can't see two feet in front of myself."

I couldn't lie to her, and I certainly didn't want to argue with her, so I told her the truth. "I smell Toklata's blood. There might be a trail of it."

Instead of wondering why in hell I could smell day-old blood, she focused more on the fact that there was something for me to smell. "Blood? Oh, the poor girl, she must be terrified. You said she was kidnapped?" That impulsive side of her took over, and her arms curled a little too tightly around my neck for comfort. "You've gotta find her, Ronin! WHAT ARE YOU WAI—"

Her arms were nearly gagging me at this point; it was almost like she was trying to pull me to the ground. My legs buckled, her arms loosened completely, and we both toppled over. I tried to turn around, catch her, and regain my balance, but failed and ended up in a very suspicious position.

--

-Leigh's pov-

"Ronin! Get off of me!"

"My earlier offer still stands, Leigh," he said jokingly, and unfortunately, I was in no position to slap him.

"You stupid idiot! No wonder you haven't found her yet! You're so easily sidetracked!" I screeched, pushing a stray lock of hair behind my ears. I was still in my clothes from work (pretty much a white t-shirt, black capris, and a green and white apron-type thing) and I didn't want them all dirty. Ronin had put on that _ridiculous_ cloak, but other than that his outfit was the same as it had been, including that long sheath (it seemed really dumb without a sword in it).

Looking at the wooden scabbard got me thinking about his odd habits again. Sleeping all day, wearing all black, all of that stuff; but no matter what I told myself, I couldn't will myself to feel uneasy around him. Despite the womanizing, the sword, the amber eyes, and the scar, he still seemed very huggable.

He stood up, but had a slight limp in his stride, though he tried to hide it.

"Oh, Ronin—your legs, I forgot," I gasped, brushing my pants off and going over to his side. "You should rest."

"No. I can't, now that I have a trail to follow." He's so stubborn. But then, so am I.

"You're right," I sighed. "We can't stop. This is a rescue mission! But,"—and here was where my stubbornness came in—"you're not going to carry me." I hooked his arm around my shoulders. "I'm going to carry you."

He tried to pull off of me but eventually accepted my help. We didn't get very far; naturally, out pace was pretty slow, but it still felt good to be productive. I couldn't really see where I was going too well, so while Ronin partly relied on me, I relied on his senses. I didn't question how he could smell Toklata's blood; it just hadn't occurred to me that it was a very inhuman trait at the time.

After hours of this tedious work, Ronin told me to go back into the dense forest on either side of the small dirt road we were traveling on because the sun would be coming up soon. The clever man told me we'd look odd limping around out in the open, and _that_ was why we had to avoid the daylight.

Stupid, lying jerk.

--

-Third person pov, Konosuke's house-

"Y-your house is so c-c-cold!" Toklata snapped, pointing out the obvious. "You should c-cook something."

"Oh come on, it's not that cold. You're a little drama queen. Do you have any twos?"

"Go fish," she sniffed, glad to be playing a game that was short enough as not to lose her attention, and also one that she could win. "Um…do you have any aces? And do you still plan on killing Ronin?"

Konosuke choked on his whiskey. "Where the _hell_ did that come from! Oh, and go fish."

Toklata calmly took a card. "Ronin. When he comes and saves me, do you still plan to kill him? Because that would make me very sad." She made big, teary puppy-dog eyes at him.

"You, girl, have a knack for saying things you shouldn't say," the vampire hunter growled. "And you like to sneak those questions in when I least expect you to. Damn that's annoying. Now look at the time, you should be in bed. Get some sleep and tomorrow I'll teach you to play poker."

"B-but Mister Konosuke, you didn't answer my question!" she whined, getting up and heading down the hall nevertheless. Konosuke followed her, absentmindedly shuffling the cards they had been playing with, to make sure she was in fact going to bed.

"Come on, I know you're sleepy," he said, gently pushing her into bed.

"Not really. Tell me a story. With ponies. And furry pink things." She gave an almost evil grin.

He sighed; young girls certainly were scarier than vampires.

--

A/N-Consider it an Easter gift. Spring break gets kind of boring. –sigh- My cousins went to Disneyland. Oh well, enjoy.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N-To kel kel girl 123—sorry for any offense I might have caused, and you're right, I shouldn't use stereotypes. I was careful around the "redhead stereotype" that I used back in Chapter16, and shouldn't have been as open with this one. I apologize.

--

-Third person pov, Konosuke's house-

Konosuke respected Toklata's wishes and refrained from waking her up by sitting by her bedside and asking if she was going to sleep all day. On this particular day, he woke her up by dumping a bucket of icy water on her.

"Ah! That's _freezing_! Why the _hell_ did you do that!" she screeched, sitting bolt upright and holding her shivering shoulders.

"Because you asked me not to scream at you to wake you up. This was my only other means."

She looked bitterly at Konosuke, sticking her tongue out and crawling out of bed. "Do you have something dry for me to change into now?" she asked, shaking some excess water off of her skin.

"I thought you'd ask. Here." He handed her the shirt she had used before, while her other clothes had been in the wash. "Hurry up and change, and then get your ass to the kitchen."

He left her to change out of the wet clothes, and she did so, also bringing her blankets and sheet when she went to the kitchen, lumping them all together and throwing them into the dryer. Then she sat across from Konosuke, who was being bored by the day's paper, at the kitchen table and waited for him to speak in a mockingly businesslike manner (with legs crossed and a bored expression).

He raised an eyebrow at her, only his pale eyes showing over the newspaper, and sighed. "You're such a little smart-ass. Now, I really think you should try cooking something today. You're going to have to face it sometime. I mean, don't they have classes in school where they grade you for cooking…? Well, that doesn't matter. All I'm saying is you should take a look at a recipe box and attempt something."

"And you're not afraid that I'll poison it?" she asked.

"Nope. Because you're not that stupid. Or that heartless. I'm going outside, so don't bug me until you've made something decent."

"Excuse me, but what exactly do you do out there?" she asked, while Konosuke got up and pulled an old cookbook out of one of the cupboards and threw it on the smooth wood table.

"Nothing special. Now come on and start cooking." With that, he left through the front door and circled to the back of the small house, leaving Toklata flipping through the pages of the ancient cookbook.

After a lot of searching, and a lot of terribly complicated recipes, Toklata (who was very frustrated at this point) took the time to get her bedding out of the dryer and rearrange it again on her temporary (she hoped) bed, stopping to lay on them while the blankets were still warm. On the way back to her tedious chore in the kitchen, she noticed the door to Konosuke's room was open slightly, and couldn't help but spare a quick peek inside.

Compared to the other rooms, it still looked like a cluttered mess. There were still papers all over the desk, but there was something else too…

Her heart skipped a beat. Could it really be...? She took a quick look around to make sure Konosuke was still out in the yard, and then snuck into the room, closer and closer to the shining silver metal piece on the desk. Moving a few papers, she found Ronin's sword in a pitiful state.

It was practically crying to be cleaned of the flaky blood that had dried onto the blade. The blade side was also in serious need of a sharpening, and the handle part was very well worn, even fraying in some parts. But then, it must have been old, she reasoned. On the dull side of the sword, opposite the blade, there was a tiny crack, barely noticeable with just a quick once-over of the weapon, but it was there all the same.

Toklata realized that Konosuke hadn't done a thing to the katana; that it must have been like this even the first time she had seen it flash. Ronin certainly could do with a new one, though she was sure he wished he had it at that moment, instead of looking for her unarmed.

She wrapped a hand around the battered handle and tried to pick it up like that, but ended up dropping it on the floor and nearly cutting her own leg open in the process.

"I see you've found the vampire's sword," came Konosuke's bitter voice from the doorway. She turned quickly, expecting some nasty reaction from him, but stopped halfway around when she saw the thoughtful look on his face. "That thing really is in a horrible condition. Though I can't imagine how old it is. Takoda seems to hold it dear, and his fighting skill without a weapon is lacking, so me having it in possession gives me an advantage."

Toklata stepped out on a ledge and chanced a delicate question. "Ah…Mister Konosuke, why? Why do you want to kill Ronin so badly? I'm not questioning why you're a vampire hunter, I'm just questioning why you picked Ronin in particular."

He stared at her through those cold eyes for the longest time, with folded arms and a rather amused expression, finally sighing and saying, "Don't you have a lunch to make?"

"I'm nine. You go make me lunch."

Clearly, Konosuke was not amused. A swift punch to her stomach was all her clever retort earned her, and she doubled over from the pain, eventually falling on her knees. For such a simple (yet harsh) movement, Konosuke's punch certainly did wreak horrible after effects.

Toklata was scared half to death, first of all, because not only was she at Konosuke's mercy in her current position, but she had begun to retch up alarming amounts of blood. This unsettled Konosuke as well, as he reminded himself that live, squirming bait worked better than a corpse.

He watched her, coughing the crimson liquid onto the carpet, for only a few moments before he lifted her gently and carried her quickly to the bathroom, letting her choke into the sink. Her face was drawn up in pain, nothing at all like her usual lighthearted features, and her body shook with each new lapse of blood. The occasional thwack on the back was necessary, and at times it seemed like the flow of blood would never stop, and Toklata would die then and there. Finally, she fainted, looking incredibly pained and tired, obviously in no state to make lunch.

--

-Leigh's pov-

Ronin had slept only a few hours before he pulled himself up and announced he was going to go find a stream and try to do something about his legs. But I was getting a little worried, as he'd been gone for hours now. Surprisingly, I wasn't very tired after our long night of searching, and was really anxious to get going again, but Ronin insisted we not get back on the road until the sun went down.

So there I was, sitting under a tree, with no sort of companionship, and Ronin had been missing for what seemed like forever. Naturally, I was worried about him (and bored, too), so I decided to go and find him, to make sure he hadn't died somewhere. Really.

I tried to be as quiet as possible (something about Ronin makes you want to be inconspicuous), but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to sneak up on him even if I wanted to. That's what I thought, but I was wrong (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

I found the creek that he said he'd be in, and followed it a ways, until I found a larger pool of water and a miniscule waterfall, maybe seven feet tall. I looked on the shore for Ronin at first, figuring he'd be washing off his bloody thighs with a soft cloth or something.

Instead, he was in the water, bathing his _whole_ body, his back to me. Call me shallow, but I just stared. And stared.

And for good measure, I stared some more.

The water only came up to his mid-thigh, so I could see him quite well. He had (and still has, I'm sure) a cute, tight butt and a well-built body, with lots of little scars, though none as prominent as the one on his left cheek (and I am referring to his face). To add to this, the sun was shining through the golden orange autumn leaves ever so slightly, illuminating the water around him.

I must have made some little noise, because he turned slightly, saw me, and immediately ducked into the water up to his neck.

"Leigh!" he snapped. "What the hell are you doing!"

"Hi Ronin," I sang in a light voice, grinning.

"Excuse me! I'm trying to bathe here! Get lost, you dirty minded woman! And stop your gawking! You can't even see anything now!"

"But you face is cute too," I teased, watching as he blushed a deep crimson. "What's wrong, Ronin? You seemed so eager for a chance at showing off yesterday! You don't strike me as someone who'd be embarrassed in this situation!" I could tell he wasn't pulling any pleasure from his position, and that amused me even more. I realized that I should be more embarrassed than he was at this point, but I wasn't and life was good.

"Come on! Leave already!"

"I'll leave if you answer my question!" I called to him. He seriously looked ready to drown himself. "Why's the little girl been kidnapped? And who kidnapped her? I promise I'll leave if you answer!"

Ronin went a little further into the water, and the ends of his hair floated around him on the surface. "The same man who shot _me_ kidnapped _her_, _because _of her association to _me_," he stated bluntly.

I cursed his sharp tongue, stuck my own out at him, and, regretfully, left. I was tempted to run back and stare some more, but my dignity prevailed and I left the man in peace. Besides, I was sure he would have been expecting me that time.

--

-Ronin's pov-

The nerve of that woman! Gawking at my bare flesh like that! And to think she'd been so eager to find Toklata only hours earlier!

Of course, I was a little embarrassed because I hadn't sensed her coming. And embarrassed for reacting the way that I did—I could have taken complete advantage of that situation! I was a little surprised at her reaction, too. She didn't even blush slightly; in fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.

I quickly reminded myself of more pressing matters. I had Toklata's scent, which almost guaranteed that I would be able to find Konosuke's hidey-hole within a matter of days (well, nights, really). But then what?

I considered trying to rescue Toklata without Konosuke's noticing. This would keep both her and Leigh out of danger, but it seemed unlikely that I would catch him off guard. It also seemed a little cowardly.

My other option was to confront Konosuke outright, but there was always the slim chance that he would beat me, kill me, and then Leigh _and_ Toklata would be doing his bidding.

_Impossible_, I assured myself. _There's no way I'll lose to him. I _can't_ lose to him._


	18. Chapter 18

-Ronin's pov-

After the day before, our night of searching certainly was awkward, especially with Leigh on my back. But I had a good idea of where I was heading, and Leigh didn't make any snide comments, probably because she was trying to concentrate on more important things (then again, what could be more important than me…oh yes, Toklata).

Or maybe Leigh's lack of speech was simply from her exhaustion; after all, she hadn't slept much over the course of our journey. Even the day before, she said she had been calling different babysitters to take care of Kam, most of which were cousins or something like that, who could stay at her home for days, and keep her small shop running. I guess I should have told her that we might be gone for a while before she had called the _first _babysitter, who had apparently thought she'd be back in the morning. Oops. Oh well, no use crying over spilled blood—unless, of course, it's your dead master's blood.

I stopped. It was no longer Toklata's blood that I smelled, but Jaden's. It was a dizzying sensation, but I was sure it was her scent.

"Ronin, is something wrong?" Leigh asked, with weary concern. I shook my head lightly, not to say that I was okay, but to clear my senses a bit.

"I don't know," I told her, honestly. "It could be my imagination…or Konosuke playing tricks." Again, I had failed to keep my mouth shut. I just wasn't used to having other people around to hear me mutter!

"Konosuke?" Leigh asked, just as I predicted she would. "Who's that? And what's this 'it' you're referring to?"

I sighed and decided to, as usual, tiptoe with my words—answer her questions; just not directly. "Konosuke is the girl's kidnapper, not a big fan of mine, obviously, and this 'it' is this strange scent I'm picking up."

"Not Toklata's scent?"

"No."

"But it is a _strange_ scent, right?"

I dropped Leigh, not really wanting her on my back with that suspicious tone. She fell ungracefully into the dirt, on her backside, and glared up at me (because glaring is something Leigh is _really _good at) when I turned to face her.

"Are you implying something?" I snapped in a frigid tone of voice. If she was trying to say what I thought she was trying to say—

"Another woman, Ronin, a woman! Is that what you're smelling!"

"YES!" I screamed back, not really willing to talk about it. First of all, she _still_ should have been questioning _how_ I could smell _anything_! Second of all, what makes her so special? Like she's the only woman I've ever asked to come to bed with me! (Well, she _is _the only one I've asked so directly.)

"Do you love her!" Leigh demanded, in a rather frightening tone.

"I do! I….I did!"

--

-Leigh's pov-

I didn't really realize that Ronin didn't seem to be especially happy about my questioning—at least, not until it was too late. Suddenly, he looked terrified, and something about him seemed younger as he took a quick look at his empty sheath. His face got even paler than it already was, then he dropped to his knees and grabbed my hand.

"Oh gods," he hissed, to no one in particular. "When Master finds out I've lost her sword, she'll whip me—or worse! Charna's Guts! She'll throw me in a cage and drop me on those stakes fifty times! And if I'm not dead after that, she'll make me listen to Paris rant on about the 'good old days'!"

"E-excuse me?" I stammered, having not the slightest idea of what he was yammering on about—he seemed helplessly confused about something, like he didn't really know where he was or what he was doing. "Ronin! Ronin, listen to me!" I cried. I wanted so bad to help him out of his lost, clueless state.

So I slapped him.

"Get a hold of yourself!

"W-what!" he snapped suddenly. "You're the one who's sitting on the ground! Get on my back! Lets go!"

I gaped at him for a few seconds, before he lifted me up and slung me over his shoulder, sighing irritably. I kicked at him like a madman, but he took it in stride, only smiling a bit at my efforts. Finally, I blurted out the first thing that I thought might stop him. "Master will whip you—or worse—when she finds out you've lost her sword!"

Ronin dropped me (again). "What did you say?" he asked, his face drawn into something that looked like confused anger.

"It was…something you said. Just now, before you slung me over your shoulder. This woman—"

"Jaden," he informed me.

"You, ah, followed her? She was your—"

"Mentor," he cut in again. "And I keep thinking it's her blood I'm smelling—maybe it is. I don't know; I can barely tell up from down in this state. You haven't noticed if we've been going in circles, have you?"

I scowled, but was kind of relieved that he wasn't speaking of some former lover, but just his teacher. "Ronin, this all happened only a few minutes ago. Snap out of it; I don't want to be chasing our tails for the next few nights."

He sighed. "Alright. I guess I just had a traumatic flashback-type thing. If it happens again…" He trailed off, looking thoughtful, before nodding to himself and continuing. "If I do it again, just tell me that Jaden would find something much more cruel to do to me, and that I'd better hurry up with her sword. Got it, Leigh? No slapping, alright?"

I smiled and nodded. He actually stuck out his hand for me and politely lifted me off the ground. After that gesture, he grabbed my by the waist and again flipped me over his shoulder. I would bet a lot of money that he was grinning.

--

-Third Person pov, and you know the rest-

A sore stomach was all that Toklata woke up to that night. Konosuke was nowhere to be found (well, not in her room, hanging over her bed, at least). It was a welcome relief—but as a trade, her stomach region felt like she'd done sit-ups for four hours straight the day before. Then she remembered exactly what _had_ happened, and double-checked to make sure that Konosuke wasn't lurking around anywhere around her.

Again, she was thankful to still be alive—but she found that she was once again terrified of the vampire hunter. She could have sworn that he had been nicer to her over the past few days.

_Maybe_, she pondered, _it was to catch me off guard so he could do something really mean to me._

Toklata shivered involuntarily. Punching her in the gut could be considered something "really mean", by her standards. But still, he could have done worse, considering Ronin's sword had been only feet away from him…

She checked to make sure she still had all ten of her fingers (for the record, they were all there).

She took hold of her head, which was pounding. Her body certainly didn't like her on this particular morning. In fact, normally, at this point, she would be out of bed, at least attempting to do something, instead of lying with her covers drawn up around her.

Letting out a sigh, she wondered for the hundredth time when in the world Ronin would come and save her. After all, wasn't that his duty? She scrunched up her nose—she didn't really like the thought of being the helpless damsel in distress, but it was fairly unavoidable with Konosuke.

He was pretty careful to keep warning her of what would happen to Ronin if she chose to try and escape, not to mention the punishment _she_ would receive if caught.

Still, would Konosuke be able to find Ronin if she ran away? Or catch up with her? Was it worth taking that chance, just so she wouldn't look like a defenseless moron?

_No_, she told herself, shaking her head to emphasize this. _Better not risk it and get a bunch of people killed_. _That wouldn't be good at all._

Angrily, Toklata blew a stray lock of brownish hair out of her face as she realized the pain in her stomach wasn't only from Konosuke's punch, but also from a lack of eating anything. Hopefully she wouldn't be asked to cook again anytime soon.

Bracing herself, she sat up and rolled out of bed, forgetting that I was several feet above the floor. When she finally pulled herself up after that fall, she slowly cracked open the door and tiptoed down the hallway. Upon reaching the living room, she smiled.

There was Konosuke, fast asleep, with a book about home first-aid covering his head from the light from the ceiling light.

--

A/N- I know, two weeks later, and all I have is this dinky little chapter. I had my first softball game on Saturday, which lasted more than two hours (that we won by like forty points), after which I went to the bookstore and got the Lord of the Shadows and another long-awaited book. So I spent most of the rest of the weekend reading them. The week itself has been hell, it seems like I can never get my math homework done or I never get enough sleep. To top the crap week off, today was out second game. We had three extra innings, but in the end we lost. And I was pretty upset because I only played the first three innings. –Originally, I wanted this to be the chapter when Ronin finally got to Konosuke's house and some epic battle begins…but I just can't write right now. I really just put this up just to actually have something up, and feel like I accomplished something other than chewing my nails down on the bench today.


	19. Chapter 19

-Ronin's pov-

Leigh was fast asleep, head on my shoulder, red hair falling messily in her face. I was a little worn out myself, but I didn't want to stop and rest.

I guess I finally realized how precious the time was. I felt guilty and ashamed about letting my thoughts drift so far away from saving Toklata over the past few days. And to add to that, I was suddenly sensing my late (my _very_ late) mentor's scent—like one big horrid guilt trip. And, adding to the weight of the world that was resting upon my shoulders was Leigh's weight. Taking all this "time off" from searching for Toklata, what I really should have been doing was resting my wounds, not hitting on women.

The sun would be rising within a few hours, which would again leave me helpless and in hiding, while I tried to sleep in between Leigh's pointless questioning of me (pointless because I never gave her any direct answers).

I realized that the trail I was following was getting nearer and nearer to the main roads; not so much in the woods anymore. I didn't think that Konosuke would actually be right in town, but he obviously wasn't deep in the forest either. So confusing. I hated Konosuke even more for this.

I was positive he hadn't killed Toklata; because he still had good use for her. Besides, she was likable enough. Cute, energetic and naïve were the best ways to describe her, and it seemed that even a man like Konosuke couldn't help but see her as some sort of surrogate daughter at times. She wasn't someone who was easily hated, so I had to stop for a moment and wonder why Toklata was so lonely; why her mother pushed her away. It was kind of sad, actually, and I wondered what would become of her after I rescued her and sent her home. Part of me hoped that Leigh would offer to adopt her, but I definitely couldn't ask her to; she would have to do it without any hints from me, or I would feel guilty the rest of my life.

The only way I thought I could ever be truly content was if I took Toklata with me, but that was a reckless, stupid idea. There was no way I could do that to her.

A bit later, I followed the mixed scent of Toklata's and Jaden's blood completely onto a well-used road (this one was actually paved) with several dark houses dotting it on either side. I got an ominous feeling that told me I was getting so close, and another unwanted emotion crept into my stomach. It was a sickening feeling, like I'd just swallowed a huge chunk of ice, and it had gotten stuck between my chest and my stomach. I guessed that was what most people referred to as "nervousness." Intestines doing flips and what not (but for me, it was the chunk of ice, okay?).

--

-Leigh's pov-

I woke up that night to find myself unbelievably sore, which was the result of having fallen asleep while draped across Ronin's shoulder blade. He knew I was awake before I even bothered to open my eyes.

"We're really close," he said in a sort of strangled voice. It was at this point which I pulled both green eyes open. Was the Great Ronin Takoda _nervous_, or was that just my mind playing tricks on me? His hand moved to the air just above his sheath, searching for the handle of the sword that should have been there, and he shuddered at the remembrance of its absence.

I'd say that that was definitely anxiousness. But still, Ronin, nervous? I didn't think such a thing was possible at the time. I looked in the sky to make sure pigs weren't flying as well. Nope, none there. There were a few sparrows, though.

I guessed that he might've been afraid for his legs and the awful, battered shape they were in. They weren't a pretty sight. I decided I should probably stop pressing my weight onto them too.

"Put me down, Ronin! Do I look handicapped to you!"

"No, but you are ugly." With that comment, he unhooked his arms from around my knees and lowered himself enough so that I could touch the ground and land safely on my feet. Even after his wisecrack, he didn't have that awful grin on his face, which couldn't be good.

"What time is it?" I asked him, suddenly noticing how much taller he was than me. After riding on his back for so long, and being preoccupied at the shop, I just hadn't noticed his amazing height before. He was _at least_ six and a quarter feet tall!

"I don't know," he sighed, a hint of irritation showing in his voice now as well. "I'm pretty sure the sun is coming up within a few hours, though. We'd better get moving. If you insist on walking yourself, you had better keep up, got it?"

I gave him a look that was (hopefully) very snobby and started to carry myself regally down the road.

"Leigh, we're going the other way," Ronin pointed out in a falsely sweet voice. I turned on my heel and strutted past him with my nose up in the air and eyes closed, but I could feel him smiling a sarcastic smile at my back. I'm sure it grew even wider when I tripped over my own feet several times and landed on my hands and knees, the pavement scraping my skin pretty badly. Ronin didn't offer to help me up as I examined my stinging palms (my knees didn't get scraped because my capri's came to just below them), but when I glanced up at him, he wasn't grinning wickedly anymore.

"Let me see your hands," he commanded, seeming _very_ sure of himself. It was such a demanding tone that I didn't even think before extending my left hand to him. He crouched down beside me and grabbed my wrist, turning it slightly so that my palm was facing upward…and he…he…_licked it!_

I tried to draw back, but his grip was too tight. "Let me go, Ronin! What do you think you're doing!"

"Look at it," Ronin snapped, still in that absolutely frozen tone. I was about to scream at him, but I spared a glance at my hand and all of my protests died in my throat. The scrape had closed up completely, no raw skin, no fresh blood; only several light, wide scars across my palm.

"H-how did—What do—Why is—" I couldn't seem to get the right question out, so I went on stumbling through two-word sentences until I found something, _anything_ that I could say. And the only words my lips could form happened to be: "WHAT ARE YOU!"

During my frantic spluttering, he had taken my right hand and done the same thing to it, and then looked ready to maybe bite my neck (no joke was intended there, seriously). But after I said those three simple words, he blinked at me several times and then narrowed his wolf-like eyes, as if trying to read something written in very small lettering across my face.

"Ah…sorry, Ronin!" I sang in a high-pitched voice (one I use out of, of course, nervousness). "I don't know what came over me! It's silly!"

He nodded his head slowly, his cloudy expression clearing up a bit. "Come on! You're wasting time, Leigh! Get up, let's go!"

So, by now the stupid jerk had succeeded only in making us both uneasy.

--

-Third Person pov, Konosuke's House-

Sleep was slow-coming that night, like it always was on Christmas Eve (and well into Christmas morning). This wasn't to say that she wasn't _tired. _In fact, her head was going fuzzy with all sorts of ridiculous ideas from her drowsiness, but on this particular night, Toklata Samson was a nine-year-old insomniac.

She was both bored and anxious as she lay in the darkness, worrying over Ronin and Konosuke both. In her mind, neither one really needed to die; not her newfound friend, nor her kidnapper. Throughout the past however-many days, she had seen first-hand that the two men weren't what they made each other out to be. Ronin wasn't a foul, soulless leech; while Konosuke wasn't a coldhearted, child-beating (at least not most of the time) demon. But how to make the two of them see that…well, she'd been up all night trying to figure that one out between her skittishness and sleepiness.

She sat up in her bed, hugging her knees to her chest, watching how the moon illuminated the ground, before a sudden cloud would throw the world into a deeper darkness for a few minutes. Just like how Konosuke was casting a dark shadow over Ronin's life. Then again…what life? Ronin hadn't cared for much before this incident. Was it possible that some trauma could be good for him?

Toklata brushed away those heavy thoughts, turning to lighter matters, like what to make for lunch if ever asked to again (something with fruit was her automatic decision).

Konosuke too was having a completely sleepless night. After having woken up to Toklata's light footsteps several hours before, sleep was an impossible and irresponsible choice. The vampire would most likely be showing up sometime soon, and drowsiness could very well mean death. He made a decision to only sleep during the day from that point on

With this in mind, he wandered the house and yard to keep himself awake, finally finding his way to Toklata's room to check up on her.

Toklata could hear his footsteps from behind the door. Closing her eyes and slowing her breathing, she feigned sleep, not in the mood for his questions when she had so many of her own to ask. Unfortunately, her amateur act didn't fool the hunter in the slightest, and he snapped at her.

"Nice try, but I'm not stupid." She closed her eyes even tighter. "Hey, I know you're awake, girlie, so drop the act." Konosuke flipped the light on and Toklata's arm rushed up to her face in order to give her eyes a bit more cover.

"What?" she groaned, flipping her body over and shoving her head into a pillow. "What do you _want?_"

"Nothing. Just wanted to point out that you should never become an actress. So why aren't you asleep?"

She pressed her face deeper into the fluffy yellow pillow. "Because," came her muffled reply, "you're standing there in the doorway talking to me."

"Don't be a smart-ass. You know what I mean."

She sighed and lifted her head off of the pillow. "I don't know, I just can't sleep! I'm so worried about Ronin! Why are _you_ up, huh?"

Konosuke ignored her question and went back to the statement she made before it, sitting at the edge of her bed and taking on a defiant, overly protective tone. "That sure is sweet, but you can't mean it. I've heard of young girls having crushes on movie stars and things like that, but never a _vampire_. What's wrong with you?"

"A-a crush?" she stammered, feeling her face redden slightly. "On Ronin? Th-that's so stupid; _you're_ so _stupid_!"

Konosuke grinned. "That's why your face is so flushed, then, _riiight_? Because you're embarrassed by my stupidity, _riiight_?"

"Right," she confirmed with a quick nod of her head. Konosuke gave a dark, skeptical laugh and stood up, leaving Toklata to try to hide her red face and deny facts for as long as she wished. He took a final look at her un-amused face and switched off the lights.

--

-Ronin's pov-

I stared at the house in front of me. No, no way. I had to be some kind of trick. But still…this was where the trail of blood had led me. And why would Konosuke want to hinder me even more? How long did he want to have to take care of Toklata?

"Um…I…I think it's a very cute house," Leigh suggested. Then, "You're sure you have the right place? The guy who shot you and kidnapped the girl?"

"Well, it certainly has his stench on it," I observed, picking out his odd scent between Toklata's and Jaden's blood. "So what, do we just burst in?"

"Maybe we should think up a plan, genius." I didn't really like the sarcasm in her tone, and decided I'd have to get her back for it later. "Or can you only think with your…ah… lower half?"

"Here's an idea," I snapped. "Why don't you go knock and ask politely if this is the home of the president of the 'I Hate Ronin Takoda' club? You think that'd work? Maybe we should see if he would kidnap _you_ too? Except I certainly wouldn't be coming to save _you_."

She folded her arms over her chest and gave me this exasperated look, as if warning me to shut up before she decided to call, "Hey, Mr. Konosuke, look who I've brought! Your buddy Ronin Takoda!"

"Why don't we wait until the daylight? I can pretend to be selling something, and you can hide in the forest or, like, whatever. Just to double check?"

"Go for it, Leigh," I yawned, guiltily happy to know that this plan would give me a good day's sleep. "I'll go find a tree now. Luck!"

"Moron! I'll be with you until the sun rises!"

I groaned.

--

A/N: I tried to write this one faster and better than the last chapter, and longer too. Hope it worked.


	20. Chapter 20

-Leigh's pov-

Breathing deeply, nervous to the point of shaking, I approached the doorway, reminding myself that salespeople aren't jumpy—walking up to doors and selling things is their job, after all. And for right now, it was _my _job as well.

Gathering up all of my courage, I stepped up the walkway and knocked.

As soon as the door opened, just a crack, a small nose popped out, followed by lips and the most beautiful pair of eyes I've ever seen, besides, of course, Ronin's. I knew she was Toklata, the little kidnapee, right away. I don't know why—Ronin hadn't said much about her appearance; but maybe it was the way she kept sparing glances to her left, like she knew she shouldn't have opened the door for me and didn't want to get caught.

"Um…Can I help you?" she asked, and I realized that while taking in her shaggy, less-than-impressive appearance that I had forgotten to say a word.

That sounds horrible, but it was true. In fairy tales; in _any_ story, the Damsel in Distress is a full-lipped, curvy-figured helpless blonde with flowing locks and gorgeous blue eyes. Toklata had the helpless part down pat, and her sea-colored eyes were even better than deep blue, but that was it. Her hair was the kind that isn't really a color at all, but that people called "brown," just to be able to call it something, and it was messy and uneven. She was dressed in a t-shirt that came to her knees, and nothing else.

"Er…is your, ah, father home, young lady?" I asked, making sure I wasn't pulling myself into some trap. If Kono-whatever wasn't here, I could just take her back to Ronin and be done with the whole mess.

"He…He's sleeping," she mumbled, looking down at the ground.

I smiled. "Well then, listen to me." I kneeled down to Toklata's height. "You need to come with me—Ronin is in that forest over there"— I motioned towards the row of trees and shrubs—"Now come on. We'll get you home."

I extended my hand to her, expecting her to take it with gratitude and make a quick escape, but instead, she slapped it away.

"Ronin would never do anything that cowardly; he would come and save me himself!" she snapped at me, her voice a little too loud for comfort, with her kidnapper sleeping close by. I made a frantic gesture for her to be quieter, which she ignored completely. "This is some kind of trap, right! Well, I'm not falling for it! I'm not going anywhere unless Ronin carries me there!"

True, Ronin hadn't told me to play rescuer if Toklata happened to answer the door, he had simply asked me to make sure it was the right place…but he couldn't be so stubborn that he would risk his life when we could get away so easily, right? (I was wrong, by the way.)

"Listen, Toklata," I hissed desperately, holding the door open as she tried to close it in my face by throwing her entire weight against it (which wasn't saying much). I knew exactly what to say to her to make me believe me, at the very least, but…

"Oi, Brat, what's all that noise for?"

Too late. Konosuke stepped into the nearby kitchen, not sleepy in the slightest, and eyed me with the same snobby look I had given Ronin earlier.

"Who is this?"

"Like you don't know," Toklata snapped at him.

He sighed. "Don't be rude, girl. At least listen to what she has to say before you go slamming the door on her. Not that you look like you could slam the door on her, with those sticks for arms." He came over to the door as well, and I couldn't help but shudder at his muscular form and cold eyes. "Can I help you?"

Toklata's eyes got wide and her hand flew up to cover her mouth, as she realized I hadn't been lying.

"I…um…" In the face of danger, I forgot all of my lines, and struggled to speak at all. "I…I'm selling something…and…And what's that for!" Between my pathetic salesperson/acting skills, Konosuke's hand had rushed up to cover his nose. At that, my temper had flared (I certainly did not stink!) and I had, of course, screamed at him.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said politely, still covering his nose. "It's just that…you reek of Vampire."

Before I could even try to make sense of that, he continued, only confusing me more. Maybe I should have run or something, but in the cartoons, the heroes always stay to listen to the villain monologue. So I did too.

"Takoda is sending women to do his dirty work? Tsk. That's not something I would expect out of him, scum or not. Still, I guess he didn't bet on Toklata being so loyal, now, did he?" Konosuke put a hand on the girl's shoulder, mocking a loving gesture, who cringed and looked down at her feet. "Go tell him to get his sorry ass over here and fight me like a man."

"Or what?" I challenged him.

Not surprisingly, he said, "Or I'll kill you…or, possibly, the girl." One hand was still on Toklata's shoulder, and his opposite hand also found it's way to her other shoulder. Then they both moved enough to straddle her neck. Not strangling her quite yet, but I got the point.

Toklata looked fairly calm, actually, but I didn't stick around. Without even thinking about keeping Ronin's hiding place concealed, I rushed towards the woods, calling his name.

"Leigh," he hissed from somewhere behind me, before I even saw him. "Be quiet! Do you want to get caught!"

"Too late," I groaned, not turning to face him.

Ronin gave a half-smirk. "Ah, so I was right. Konosuke can smell my scent. Unless, of course, you said something that simply gave you away?"

My jaw hung open. "You're saying that you used me as bait! I could have been killed!" I bit my tongue to stop myself from bursting into tears. Was that why Ronin needed me? Because I made good bait?

He must have noticed my distress. "No, Leigh. You wouldn't have been killed. You were the messenger. Konosuke needed you to deliver orders to me. If there was even the slightest chance that your death could come about, I wouldn't have risked it."

"But there was a chance, Ronin!" I whined, sounding slightly pathetic.

He just laughed and shook his head. "I hate to admit it, but I can understand how Konosuke's mind works. The two of us aren't so different."

I didn't want to hear him say things like that, but I really couldn't be sure of whether this was true or not. I didn't know much about Konosuke, except that he was completely coldhearted…and Ronin was shrouded in mystery, too, at that point. With a regretful sigh, I reported to Ronin what Konosuke had told me—the whole, freakish incident.

--

-Ronin's pov-

Decisions, decisions.

I was supposed to fight Konosuke. His demands suggested that the sooner I could do this, the better. Still, walking out into the sun to fight him weaponless probably wasn't the best choice. Fighting in the very forest clearing in which I was contemplating things was better for the both of us. I'm sure he didn't want his furnishings all bloody (snicker) and there wouldn't be enough space in his tiny home.

But how to communicate that? I couldn't walk right to his door and make that request. Sending Leigh was the best option. I was sure that if he hadn't even made a move to harm her before, he wouldn't attempt to if she came a-knocking a second time, but…

"Leigh, do you want to do a favor for me?" I asked. "Another favor? You're not bait, I told you already."

She stared angrily at me. I sighed inwardly. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this.

"Please, Leigh, _please_?" I widened my eyes pitifully and took her hand in mine, gently rubbing the back of hers with my thumb. She looked surprised for a split second, then adopted a fierce scowl.

"Don't try to charm me."

"I'm not trying to," I insisted in a soft voice. It was funny because she knew that I was. And I knew that she knew that. And she knew that I knew that she knew that I was, in fact, trying to charm her into being my letter carrier.

That's it! "You've got paper, right? Why don't you jut write a note. Tell Konosuke that he can come and fight me right here in this clearing—"

"Why should I!" she barked, finally managing to pull her hand out of my own. "Write it yourself, you're not illiterate!"

"Of course I'm not illiterate!" I snapped. I was lying; at that point, I was illiterate. But she didn't need to know that. "How about this? Go get Konosuke and Toklata packed up and lead them here. He won't dare hurt you because he won't know where to find me without your help. No tricks. Tell him that." I was being sincere there. No tricks, nope, absolutely not. I could beat him without tricks. "Honestly, I don't think that he really wants to hurt you horribly anyway. That reminds me—I forgot through all of your complaining—how did Toklata look? Did you see her?"

Leigh blinked at my suddenly eager tone. "Yeah. She looked fine. He threatened to kill her if I didn't get you…but now that I think about it, even when he had his hands around her neck, she looked kind of bored."

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, but then raised my tone to get to Leigh. "Good! That means he won't hurt you! Now just go get him to meet me here."

Before she could protest, I pushed her out of the trees. She gave me a rude gesture, and mumbled some very unladylike words, but continued walking along, carrying herself with an almost arrogant stride.

I could tell that she was scared, even through that. But, she had been the one who insisted on tagging along. And had I already told her once: If there was more than a ten-percent chance that she would get seriously injured, I wouldn't have even considered the idea.

--

-Toklata's pov-

There was a knock at the door. I was peeking out of the window, and saw that it was that lady again. I reported this to Konosuke, who didn't look too happy when I told him that Ronin wasn't with her.

He had been resting on the couch, and now he stood up to answer the door, whipping it open and giving the woman a demanding look.

"R-ronin wants you to meet him," she snapped. "Now. In a clearing in the woods. I'll lead you there. And the girl has to come too."

She had a strong tone that I could only admire in that situation. Konosuke didn't seem to like it so much. To my surprise, he agreed, asking the woman to give him a few minutes to get ready. He drifted into his room almost lazily, nonchalantly, as if he were going on a picnic instead of to a death match.

When he came back, he had a more purposeful stride—this may have had something to do with the hulking weapons he carried; on his back, his belt—pretty much everywhere. I felt a little empty-handed, and so I tried to think of something, _anything_, that I had brought with me. Nothing of my own came to mind, besides my tattered clothes (which were in the dryer), but there was something I needed to return to Ronin.

--

-Leigh's pov-

Just as my role of a messenger was reaching its peak, Toklata let out a small "Wait!" and rushed down a hallway to the right of what I assumed to be the den.

I couldn't believe what I saw when she came back. It was like some beautiful, holy thing, despite the horrid condition it was in. There was no question of whose it was, and that wasn't because of the nasty look Konosuke sent towards the inanimate object. It's metal just seemed to radiate Ronin's aura or something weird like that.

"Don't run with that thing, you'll stab yourself," Konosuke warned, though he didn't really seem to mind her bringing it along (still, he didn't offer to carry it for her). Konosuke chose to take the back door outside, in case we attracted unwanted attention, so I stepped into his home and closed the front door behind me. For a few moments, I was completely vulnerable, but the man didn't seem to have much of an interest in me, and didn't even look as threatening as he had earlier. This was a good thing. If he had killed me, I would've killed Ronin for lying to me.

Anyway, that thing was taller than Toklata was, with one blunt side and one sharp side. She was finding a huge difficulty in carrying it, trying not to drag it across the ground or slice her fingers to ribbons. It seemed a little ridiculous to me that she would even think of Ronin's sword at such a time. Was it possible that she knew him better than me?

-

I led them to the clearing, my heartbeat growing faster with each step. When I had been walking towards the small house, it had certainly seemed like a much longer trip. The clearing was in the forest at the back of Konosuke's property, and a little ways in. It had been easy to sneak past the house during the night, and in the morning because he had been asleep, but I had this odd feeling, like he had known that I was back, without Ronin, before Toklata had even mentioned it to him.

_All these weird people around me! I'm going insane!_

When we finally reached it, Ronin was calmly sitting up in a low branch of a pine tree, biting his nails. It didn't look like it was from nervousness anymore, just kind of like he was trying to give himself a manicure with his teeth. I resisted the urge to call him a pussy and rushed over to the base of the tree.

He hopped down and…walked right past me, without even sparing a glance (jerk), to head in Toklata's direction, before Konosuke stepped between them with an instigating kind of grin.

"Move," Ronin growled. It wasn't his usual cool voice or a barking one, just soft and dangerous.

"Over my dead body."

"That can be arranged."

"Don't be so eager," Konosuke laughed, looking again at me. "Before we start, though, I'm curious: who is _she_?"

Next thing I knew, Konosuke was hunched over, choking up blood.

--

-Ronin's pov-

I hit him. Hard and fast. But just the way he had said "she," it was like he was suggesting that Leigh was a prostitute or something, and my current state of mind couldn't tolerate it.

I guess I should've thought about it a little more before I actually struck him (he certainly hadn't been expecting it), as Leigh was looking absolutely dazed. Konosuke, though his coughing fit, noticed that.

"Never seen the vampire that mad, then?" His voice was still joking.

"V-vampire? What?" Leigh droned. Konosuke looked up at her, surprised. I looked over to her, exasperated. Even Toklata covered her hands slowly with her mouth when she realized that Leigh didn't know.

"He didn't tell you, then?" Great, now he was going to take advantage of the situation. I tried to give him a warning growl, but he only raised his voice, speaking each word slowly and clearly for the poor, clueless Leigh.

"Ronin Takoda is a vampire."


	21. Chapter 21

-Leigh's pov-

I honestly didn't know what to make of Konosuke's last sentence. He seemed dead serious, but he hadn't exactly proved his sanity to me at this point.

But if he was just nuts, wouldn't Ronin be denying it or looking at him funny, at the very least? At that point, Ronin was only simply glaring daggers at him. Not an "I told you to bring your sanity" kind of glare, but the kind you would give someone after they just spilled a secret that you had trusted with them and them alone. Toklata didn't look hopelessly confused either.

Maybe they were all crazy?

Suddenly, not-so-distant memories started to make sense as pieces fell into place. Ronin licking the blood off of my palm, the way they healed after he did this, the way he followed the scent of Toklata's blood, and how he got confused when he caught someone else's scent. There was also his strength and amazingly fast healing to take into consideration, and that whole "people were married by age thirteen in my day" thing that he had mentioned to me.

I looked towards him slowly, and he hung his head, though still shooting Konosuke that horrid stare.

"No, Ronin," I moaned. It wasn't really the fact that he was a two-legged leech that was bothering me, but the fact that he had thought to keep it a secret from me. Even if I hadn't believed it at first, he could have demonstrated his strength. Toklata knew. Konosuke knew. So was I the only one who didn't?

"You're no perfect human, either," Ronin growled to Konosuke, momentarily forgetting his shame and lifting his head high. "But what the hell are you?"

"What gave it away? I didn't expect someone like you to figure it out, despite how obvious it was," Konosuke shot right back. Around all of this inhumanity, I actually stopped and wondered if maybe Toklata was a werewolf or something.

Ronin continued, and I listened closely. "You haven't aged much, despite the time lapse between now and out first meeting. And you could smell me on Leigh."

"So you used her as a test?"

Thank you, Konosuke, for siding with me on that one.

"Of course not."

Shut up, Ronin.

Between their verbal war, Toklata had snuck over towards me, still clinging to Ronin's sword. Wordlessly, she carefully set it on the ground and showed me her hands, which were, despite her best efforts, sliced up.

"Poor thing," I murmured, ripping a piece of cloth off my pants and wrapping her hands. "But it was brave of you to carry it all the way out here. I'm sure Ronin can use it." That is, if he could get a hold of it without Konosuke's interference.

"Sorry I didn't believe you," she mumbled, examining her patched hands. I was going to reply, but then she suddenly asked, "Excuse me, but what are you to Ronin? I mean…are you, like, his girlfriend?"

"Um…you could say that…I guess," I responded, not quite sure what the real answer would be. She didn't look too happy with my reply, as she kicked the ground and turned away, again picking up the sword, thus destroying my homemade bandaging. Clueless, I sighed, and turned my attention back to the two men.

--

-Ronin's pov-

The whole verbal insults thing was getting pretty old. Of course, I was at a disadvantage, but _come on!_ I thought it was pretty obvious that I'd be the one stressing defense, so I was waiting for Konosuke to attack, but here we were, throwing insults back and fourth. And I still didn't know what he was, but I was willing to bet that he was a partial vampire. Not quite Half, but partial. I asked him this directly, and he gave a sickening grin.

"Brilliant, Takoda, absolutely genius. I didn't think you'd guess that, it being so rare and you being so moronic." He slipped out a gun. "You see, I never wanted to be blooded. It was done forcibly, but I fought it, fought the _leeches_ that were holding me down and pumping blood into my fingertips; killed them—so there's not much of your kind's horrid blood in me. And I don't have any loyalty to your type. So I'm not following any of your rules, understand?" He shot just above my right shoulder, but I didn't flinch.

There was no way I was giving him the pleasure of seeing me squirm. Of course, that story of his was enough to churn my stomach. Leigh had been listening as well, and her face was pale, with maybe a slight green tinge. And the thing was, it wasn't Konosuke's behavior that had been so grueling, but whatever scum of a vampire had tried to blood him with force, and had needed some other bastard to help hold him down.

Leigh wasn't hearing too well about vampires at this point, and was inching slowly further and further away from me. Toklata, though, actually came closer to me. Slowly and carefully, but with my katana in hand.

Konosuke caught this too. Without taking his eyes off of me, he commanded, "Don't take another step, girl."

Toklata stopped, but she didn't draw back any. Konosuke seemed satisfied enough with this, and turned back to me.

"Well? I'm _waiting_. Why don't you attack already?" he asked, knowing exactly _why_ I hadn't so much as moved yet. The last thing he was expecting was for me to lash out without a weapon.

But that's what I did. Dammit. Bad idea.

I lunged at him, but not with my heart quite completely into it, obviously, because he was able to dodge without too much effort. I wasn't thinking properly, and after he countered, I was wide open. He took advantage of this momentary stupidity, whipped a dagger out from somewhere, and shoved it into my side.

The wound the blow left wasn't too bad, with minimal bleeding, but it was irritating, just because of where it landed—a long scratch, right down the right side of my body, that ended just above my belt. I abandoned my now ripped cloak. I assumed that it would only get in the way.

"Trying to flaunt yourself for your admirers, Takoda?"

Admirers? That was plural…so he was either referring to Leigh and himself (ugh) or Leigh and Toklata. I was willing to guess the second option, but still…Toklata? An admirer? Of me? Maybe I should've paid more attention when we had just been relaxing in the cave. Oh well, too late now. If she wanted to have a crush on me (and what living female creature wouldn't?) then that was fine. I'd set her straight later.

Again I lunged, contrary to my thoughts of defense only minutes earlier, and this time I caught his face with my nails, leaving long, ugly gashes across his already scarred face. Snarling, he fired his gun again, and the bullet caught the very edge of my shoulder, barely leaving a welt. Of course, while checking this, he again took advantage of the situation and took another stab. I narrowly avoided it, but I got knocked off balance while dodging and stumbled ungracefully a few times, which left me wide open.

I was _not_ having a good day.

Suddenly, a familiar scent was detectable in the air. The sickening smell of blood; Jaden's blood.

I was really not having a good day.

--

-Leigh's pov-

I wasn't quite sure what happened. My eyes couldn't register every little movement that was going on, but I noticed that booth Konosuke and Ronin had picked up wounds in the moments that had passed. The latter remained weaponless, but I suppose that since he was a, ah, vampire, he should be stronger than Konosuke anyway. And yet, he seemed to be the one at a disadvantage. Maybe he was better with a sword, but his skill without one left a lot to be desired.

Toklata hadn't made a move to give it back to him after Konosuke had snapped at her, and it's not like she could've thrown it to him or ran it to him. Either way, it would end up in Konosuke's hands. Ronin could've got it from her, I guessed, but he was so heated that he hadn't thought about it or was afraid once he took it from her he'd slice her in half when he turned around with it—something I wouldn't put past him in the state he was in.

Speaking of which, it was kind of hopeless. You'd think he was blind, the way he was suddenly throwing out odd punches (I couldn't actually see the movements, but I could tell that only a few of them actually hit by the positions he ended up in and the lack of much reaction out of Konosuke).

Still, when I examined more closely, I realized that this kind of made sense. Ronin wasn't a muscle bound goon. Well, yeah, the muscles were there, but they weren't huge, bulging things (of course, his height made up for this). I guess that meant he relied less on brute strength and stressed other aspects more. But then, I'm no expert.

No matter how little I knew of the matter, though, I was sure that he must be very strong anyway; it just seemed like a natural thing—he talked big, so he should be able to back it up.

"Come on, Ronin!" Toklata shouted, bouncing up and down with anticipation where she stood. Ronin took the cheer in stride, finally landing a blow to Konosuke's shoulder—and apparently one with a lot of force behind it.

--

-Ronin's pov-

Finally. Finally I managed to get in a decent hit.

The smell of vampire blood, especially the blood of someone as close to me as Jaden was, leaves a big dent in my senses. I mean, they go absolutely haywire. It's a natural reaction, and it's damn annoying, too.

It works out like this. Your average vampire would be able to sense vampire or vampaneze blood, because of their heightened senses. It might be a minor annoyance, but it wouldn't drive them insane. A well-trained human swordsman also has more highly developed senses than your average mortal, plus a sort of sixth sense, if you will.

These two aspects, with a dash of Jaden's blood adds up to one thing: a losing battle.

I stopped, realizing that I wasn't going to get anywhere fighting the way I was. The last hit I had delivered gave me enough time to back off before Konosuke came back with a good swing, and I took advantage of it.

We were both panting now, and I managed a smirk. "That's kind of disgusting, don't you think?" I asked innocently.

"What's that, Takoda?"

"Keeping samples of your victim's blood." I dropped the smile. "Quit antagonizing me—or are you afraid you won't be able to beat me without confusing me first?"

"You know, you really are clever, aren't you? I wasn't sure if it would work, honestly. But you seem agitated. I'm glad." He smiled, inducing fresh rage from me. I threw another punch, right to Konosuke's stomach, sending him into a tree trunk.

And, so, I got my chance. "Toklata," I growled, keeping my eyes on Konosuke, who was now standing up. "Give me the sword." I edged towards her—I didn't want her to come and give it to me, which would pull her right into the middle of the battle (and I had a feeling that it was going to get a lot messier once I had my sword at my waist).

Konosuke was up now, and severely pissed. No more playing. "Finally, you're serious!" I called to him, still moving my feet slowly towards Toklata.

"I've been serious!" he spat, again lifting his handgun.

"Give it up," I drawled, extending my hand to Toklata, who was just close enough to throw my beloved katana to me. "There's no way you'd hit me from there. Even if your aim was perfect," –she threw the sword to me and I caught it by the blade—"I could block it easily with the distance you're at and my speed."

Konosuke grinned wickedly. "But I'm willing to bet that _they_ can't." He nodded to Toklata, and then Leigh. "Would you be willing to bet against me, Takoda?"

"You wouldn't," I snarled, taking a step towards him.

"You're quite the gambler." He raised the gun. "But, to show you that I'm not a sore winner, I'll let you pick which one you want to keep. Toklata…or the woman?"

I glared at him with a reproachful gaze. I couldn't get to the two of them as fast as he could, but there had to be some loophole I could use. No way I was going to let either one die, no way in hell.

While I stood there, moronically biting my bottom lip and trying to think of something clever that would get me out of this, Toklata ran over to Konosuke and motioned for him to bend down. He did so, and she whispered something in his ear. He stood up and replied not by verbally answering, but with a gentle push back in the direction she came from. She went back towards the trees and leaned on one grumpily. Konosuke rolled his eyes at her.

Maybe…no, that was stupid and irresponsible. But mostly stupid.

But still, what else could I play off of? If this didn't work, the loss would be huge. But what other choice did I have?

Lifting my head and meeting Konosuke's eyes, I said, solemnly, "I choose Leigh. Kill the girl."

--

A/N- Two weeks. Is that how long it took me? Would you like an explanation? Probably not, but I'll explain anyway. Last week I had a softball game every night. Except Friday night, which I spent packing to go camping all weekend. And, I mean, we've got a working bathroom and everything in our camper, but there's not a computer in it, which destroyed any thoughts of writing right through Memorial Day. Tuesday I had practice and wrote for a little bit, but Wednesday I had my last softball game, and then a meeting for field hockey next year, so I got home really late. Thursday and Friday were devoted to finding a perfect field hockey stick for said field hockey season, but to no avail. Saturday, I wrote. A lot. And here is the effect.


	22. Chapter 22

-Leigh's pov-

_Oh, no, Ronin, how could you do that?_

That was the one thought that was running through my head. I mean, I didn't want to die either, but Toklata…? The only reason we were in this mess was to come and save her, and now he was just going to sacrifice her? Not only was it cruel, but it was also illogical.

Fortunately, Konosuke only noticed the former. Instead of shooting Toklata as promised, he chucked the gun at Ronin's head, which hit him with painful accuracy, right on the left side of his face.

"You're disgusting!" he snarled at Ronin. There was a gash on his forehead where the gun had hit, but he didn't move, calmly letting the blood roll down his face. "You would destroy a _child's_ life so that you could live _your _pathetic life!"

Toklata was paralyzed where she stood, her right hand clutching her left (hard enough to make it turn bright red) to her chest, her eyes huge. I guessed that it wasn't really the thought of dying that had her plastered to that tree trunk, but rather the thought of Ronin sacrificing her so mindlessly, not even taking a good five minutes to consider the decision.

"Don't do it, Ronin!" I called. "It's not worth it!"

"Will you shut up!" he snapped back, turning towards me. His eyes weren't as angry as his voice had suggested, and they sent a clear message; something that said he knew exactly what he was doing.

I looked back over towards Toklata, who hadn't caught Ronin's apparent control over the situation. Huge tears were rolling freely down her cheeks, but she still hadn't moved from that spot.

I heard the scratching of metal and whipped around so I could see Konosuke and Ronin clearly. The former had switched to offense, and had tried to take off Ronin's arm with a sword half the length of the vampire's. Ronin had countered, but he was now in what looked to be a hopeless position—his body turned to a painful degree, his sword behind his back, single-handedly holding off Konosuke's.

"I'll kill you!" he snarled, pulling back the short sword and stabbing Ronin again in his still-bleeding side, but deeper in this time. I didn't know really what difference his words meant; I had figured he was out to kill Ronin all along. Maybe he was planning to do it more painfully now.

Ronin hunched over, using his sword for support. The wound was apparently a lot worse than it looked. "Are you saying…that you wouldn't kill Toklata?" he panted, looking at the ground.

"I won't! I _wouldn't!_ I could never take a human child's life, especially not the life of a child such as her!"

Ronin looked up abruptly, his eyes shining and a smirk plastered on his face. "Exactly."

Next thing I knew, Konosuke was on his knees, retching up blood.

--

-Ronin's pov-  
I hit him hard in the stomach, but with the dull side of my sword. No mercy meant no immediate death. He needed to feel every little bit of pain I shoved upon him. He was on his knees now, choking.

I breathed a sigh of relief—literally letting out a huge breath of air (which puzzled Leigh). My plan had worked, thank the gods. It hadn't really been too cunning, now that I think about it, but it had worked. The gentleness Konosuke had showed Toklata, as if she were his little sister, just before my decision had to be made, that was my inspiration. I guessed that he wouldn't be able to bring himself to kill her, and it was a damn lucky guess. I didn't have a doubt in my mind that he would have shot Leigh; even after learning she had no idea what she was really involved in. There was just something in that look he had given her earlier. So Toklata had been the only one with the slightest chance of salvation.

I glanced at Toklata while I had the time. Her eyes were still huge, even after realizing the probability of her death was close to zero, but she was no longer cutting off the circulation of her left hand. Those eyes…they weren't as calming when they were round and terror-struck like that. I wanted to go comfort her, but I knew that I couldn't; that'd leave the both of us vulnerable, and Leigh too.

Konosuke attacked and I countered, turning around with a side slash. This battle was heading in a brighter direction now. This kind of didn't make sense, since the sun was setting, but that was a good thing for me.

Turning on my heel, I swung again. It was a smooth, flawless movement, and I was starting to feel a bit more like myself. This time, I got Konosuke in the back. Not too honorable, but I hadn't done it deliberately.

More myself or not, I still hated this blind fighting that we were doing. I could barely see his moves and he could barely see mine. What was wrong with us? Damn!

Suddenly severely pissed with the lack of action, a turned and slashed repeatedly with blows that were fairly easy to block, just to get things moving along. The constant sound of clashing metal was somehow reassuring. I managed a few cuts, but nothing too serious, before Konosuke switched with amazing speed from defense to offense with a thrusting attack. To dodge, I ducked under his sword (and with my height, that's quite a feat). After, I jumped and brought my sword down hard. I was attempting to get the top of his shoulder, but got more of the side, again with the dull side of the blade.

Well, we were getting somewhere.

--

-Leigh's pov-

Yep, I was right. He did fight better with a sword. Good thing too. I still couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but Ronin definitely had the upper hand now. His smirk made it that obvious, if not Konosuke's sorry condition.

(Honestly, they were both pretty bad. Some bruises from their earlier punches were starting to show. Ronin's perfect black hair was plastered to his forehead with blood, whether or not it was his own, and even in his dark pants, you could see an alarming amount of blood had soaked into them. Konosuke was also lined in black, blue, and crimson.)

Ronin wasn't drawing any blood, though. It seemed more like he was hitting him with a stick than a sword. But it was effective, so I didn't complain.

I really didn't want to see Ronin kill the guy. Not that I really wanted to spare Konosuke, I just didn't want to admit to myself that Ronin was a murderer. I thought about covering my eyes, but that seemed somehow immature and weak. Maybe I'd have the impulse to run over to Toklata and cover her eyes, while tactfully shielding my vision on her shoulder. I just got so squeamish around blood—and that whole Ronin being a vampire thing was so ironic it just made me wish for something to explode. Preferably Ronin himself…which seems mean, but really it's not.

Okay, yeah, it is.

I heard more clashing of metal. Somehow, it seemed melodious. It meant someone had attacked and then their victim had managed to block. There wasn't a lot of what one would expect—the sound of metal sliding though skin and bone, for example.

I saw Ronin jump into the air for the second time that day and come down just as before, his blade landing on the exact same place on Konosuke's right shoulder. Ouch. That was an attack I definitely wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of.

Konosuke dropped his sword, and his right arm hung limply by his side. Now I got what Ronin was aiming for. The battle was starting to drag on with all the attacking and blocking. But now, Konosuke's right arm was useless, his shoulder probably dislocated or worse with the force Ronin had put behind the attack.

Ronin allowed him to pick up his sword with his left hand and take a swing. But it was just like trying to write with the opposite hand—sloppy and inaccurate, and Ronin caught the blade with three fingers. Then, the vampire kicked Konosuke right in the gut, sending _him_ against a tree, and his short sword in an entirely different direction.

Too bad we all forgot about all those other sharp things that he was carrying.

He pulled one from off his back, a huge thing, maybe as tall as me, but with only his unsteady left hand to use it with, he didn't have a chance of hitting the ever-dodging Ronin. He soon realized this, and dropped the sword at his side, focusing more energy on glaring spitefully up at the vampire, who had sauntered his way over to the tree and was now giving him an almost stuck-up look of triumph.

"Funny, doesn't the term 'Vampire Hunter' imply that _I'm_ the prey?" he sneered. His voice wasn't humorous at all, but icy. Not just _icy_—it was…shiver-worthy.

Konosuke spit at him, just another thing for Ronin to dodge gracefully. "Bastard. Bloodsucking murderer. Go to hell."

"You first," Ronin sneered, and raised his sword.

Okay, covering-of-the-eyes time. I started towards Toklata, but she was already heading in the opposite direction.

"Wait!" she cried, throwing herself in front of Konosuke, arms spread. Ronin looked down at her with something that one would never expect on his face—pure, undisguised surprise. I'm sure my expression was a mirror of his own, as well as Konosuke's.

"Ronin, if you kill him, that makes you worse than he is! That makes you everything that he's called you, all those mean things that aren't true! But if you kill him, they_ will_ be true!"

It occurred to me that Toklata had seemed simple and soft-spoken, but, boy, did she know how to get a point across. And it made sense too. Like she'd memorized lines from a play.

She continued in a much softer voice. "He'll win. He'll be the one who was right. If you wanna kill him, you've gotta kill me too."

Ronin still seemed confused, but lowered his sword and sighed. "You wouldn't understand this. Get lost. I'm not forcing you to watch it." She stayed rooted to that spot.

Left-handed or not, a target so close and so off-guard, so suddenly unaware and gentle is very hard to miss. The whole thing happened in what seemed like slow-motion. Konosuke grabbed the huge sword with his left hand and pulled it back, finally stabbing it into the soft flesh of Ronin's belly.

But it went through Toklata's chest first.


	23. Chapter 23

-Ronin's pov-

I didn't really notice my own injury, even when Konosuke's_ tachi _suddenly tore out of my soft flesh.

What really hurt was when the blade pulled out of Toklata's chest. If her eyes had looked startled before, there wasn't even a word to describe how they looked now. I think she felt the surprise more than the pain, so that was one thing to be thankful for.

Konosuke looked ready to give an explanation, but I just didn't have the time or the patience to listen "I'll be back for you later!" I snarled, kicking him hard in the head, hard enough to make him pass out. I found my discarded cloak, wrapped the steadily worsening Toklata in it, and took off back to Konosuke's house at top speed. I knew Leigh was also attempting to follow, but I couldn't stop and wait.

Toklata's eyes were steadily dimming, like turquoise paper lanterns. The rest of her face showed that she was finally starting to feel the physical pain—scrunched up and tear-streaked. "Will I die?" she asked softly. I put off answering, and she didn't ask again. Instead, she continued with other random things. I expected she was half delirious, the way she was yammering on. – "Do you know where I left my flute? Mama'll kill me if I've lost it." She coughed a few times, and then kept going. "I like gardening. Especially flowers." She went on with this for quite a while, getting each new topic out in only two sentences, her voice growing steadily softer.

Soon, her eyes were fluttering dangerously, and she passed out just as I reached the back door of the small house and kicked it open. My cloak was sickeningly wet with her blood. It had even leaked out onto my hands, but I simply wiped it on a towel hanging in what I assumed to be the kitchen and took Toklata into the nearest room, which, out of sheer luck, was the bathroom. I slammed and locked the door behind me. It's not that I didn't think Leigh couldn't help; it was just that I didn't want her to see me cry.

I flung open the cabinets below the sink, ripping them right off their hinges, and frantically emptied them, finding some gauze and bandages. Toklata's breathing became startlingly shallow—but she_ was_ breathing, that was good. The sword had gone through the right side of her chest, so she had had a fighting chance, but now…she had lost so much blood…

I heard Leigh pound up the back steps and call for me. I snarled a nasty string of curses, not at her in particular, and she ran down the hallway and stopped outside the bathroom door.

"Is…she…um…"

"Get me some blankets," I commanded, and, for once, she obeyed without bickering. I continued my work on Toklata, getting rid of her bloody shirt and pressing gauze on the wound. After I had staunched the flow of blood (not by much, I might add), I rubbed spit into it. For such a gaping wound, it didn't do a thing.

Leigh came back with the blankets, and I opened the door just wide enough to rip them from her hands, not enough for her to look inside.

"Go try and find a needle and thick thread," I snapped, with a little more rudeness than I anticipated. She didn't look too happy, but knew that it wasn't really the time to argue, and took off.

To the sound of her fading footsteps, I wrapped most of Toklata's right side in bandages and then laid out the thick comforters for her, carefully lifting her onto them once finished with the makeshift bed. I put the back of my hand to her forehead; I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe impulse. It was sort of warm, though, which somehow made me worry more.

The thick layer of bandaging was still slowly leaking through. I laid more pressure on it, while I tried desperately to think of something; _anything_. Luckily, Leigh had been able to find a thick needle. She didn't have any thread, but some strong, clear stuff she called fishing line. I figured this was better because of its durability, but Leigh wasn't too quick to hand it to me.

"Are you trying to stitch her up with this stuff?"

"No, Leigh, I'm using it to do her hair." On that note of sarcasm, I again grabbed the supplies from her hands and slammed the door in her face. I heard her hit her head against the door in exasperation. Well, it had been stupid question.

I threaded the needle and unwrapped Toklata, starting to sew the wound as soon as I could get to it. My hands got even bloodier while doing this, but I eventually got it decently sewn up, and I heaved a sigh of relief for that.

One thing to keep worrying about was the blood loss. Well, not worry over, just to regret; it was already too late, I was sure. She had lost too much to survive.

Of course, there was always that other option. That other cruel option that could only ever be a last resort. I remembered promising to myself not to let her die. That other option…

--

-Leigh's pov-

Pacing. That's all I remember doing until Ronin slipped out of the bathroom, weary-eyed and depressed looking. His hands were all covered in dried, flaky blood; blood that wasn't his own this time. Naturally, I assumed the worst, and tried to think of something to say to comfort him.

"Ronin…this…I mean, it wasn't your fault…you did everything you could've done to help, but…"

"She's not dead," he mumbled, head down. He didn't look very happy admitting this, so I figured he was just denying the girl's death. I put a hand on his shoulder (well, tried to, anyway) and hugged him. He pulled me off of him and locked gazes with me. It was kind of scary: his eyes now looked more "sickly yellow" than "proud gold," and, if possible, he looked even paler than usual.

"She is not dead," he repeated, and headed for the broken back door.

"Ronin? Where are you going? You're not leaving—"

"I've promised to continue my fight with Konosuke. If she starts to bleed again, I'm counting on you to sew her up." His voice was weary, ashamed.

"You'd better come back, or I'll track you down and beat you," I joked nervously. He didn't smile or make any snide remark. In fact, he replied with a completely serious and completely baffling (to me) comment.

"I have to come back. It's my obligation. _She's_ my obligation."

Then he disappeared into what would soon be the dawn, by what I figured. Maybe he meant he had to come back and bury her or something? I might've checked a clock if I wasn't afraid for Ronin's sanity, but instead, I creaked open the bathroom door. It was completely dark, there wasn't even a window in there to let in light during the day, and I did quite a bit of searching the wall before finally finding the light switch and flipping it.

The tile floor was smeared with blood. I almost fainted right then and there, but somehow managed to stay upright after a deep breath. I didn't see Toklata anywhere, but then noticed the closed shower curtain and reluctantly pulled it open. Ronin had cleverly stuffed the comforters into the large bathtub to make an almost comfortable looking bed for Toklata, and had laid the girl peacefully on top of it.

God, she _was_ alive.

Her breath was hitching, she was unconscious, black, and blue, but she was _alive_.

I stood there simply marveling over Ronin for quite a while, before my shop keeping instincts told me to go find a mop and clean the place up. It wouldn't be a pleasant task, but I wanted to sit in there and keep an eye on Toklata until Ronin came back, and it would be even less pleasant to be slipping all around the bloody floor.

-

After making the bathroom completely spotless and pulling up a chair near the bathtub, I started to slowly nod off, until I bolted awake to the sound of loud, painful whimpering. Toklata was awake, and apparently, she was hurting. She wasn't clutching her chest, though, but her hands.

"Toklata…what..."

"My hands feel like they're gonna burst!" she howled pitifully. "What's wrong with me! My head hurts too!"

"Let me see what it is," I said softly, leaning towards the tub and taking her unsteady hands. There didn't seem to be anything wrong in particular, just…it was a little strange…

Each one of her ten fingertips was dotted with a small, identical scar.


	24. Chapter 24

-Ronin's pov-

Konosuke was leaning up against a tree when I found my way back to the clearing.

"Now you have the time to listen, right?" he asked lightly. I wasn't in the mood for another dragged-out battle, so I simply motioned for him to explain everything to me now. "You probably think that I was lying when I gave that whole 'I'll never take a human child's life' speech. No, Takoda. That was the truth. Because she's not dead, is she?"

"No," I snapped. "But her savior isn't too high up on your list."

He either ignored me or didn't understand me. "I purposely stabbed her through the right side of the chest, so not to hit her heart. It would've been simpler to do it through the left side, and I could've injured you more than I did if I had done that. But I spared her, and I still have a chance to kill you. Which I will."

Now I remembered my own injuries, where the long sword had gone into my stomach.

_Charna's guts! I forgot all about them until now. Half of the blood on the floor is probably my own…no, maybe more like one fifth of the blood on the floor, it wasn't as bad as Toklata's…but still… Well, who cares, he's only got his left arm anyway._

While yammering to myself, I reached for my sword, whacked my hand on the empty sheath, and realized I'd left it here earlier in all my rush and confusion. Konosuke must have seen my frantic eyes searching for it, as he grinned and swung at me with his own. Still clumsy. This wouldn't be any problem at all.

"So, Takoda, that sword of yours, it was Jaden's, right? You've worked it to the bone. If you were going to survive this encounter, I would suggest getting your ass to Japan and getting a new one."

"I'll use that sword until it shatters to an unfixable degree," I corrected, and the conversation ended there.

I dodged for a while and threw a few punches, getting his already swollen jaw a few times. I've got to admit, I really enjoyed smacking him around. He did manage to knick me a few times, but nothing serious, except for a single lucky thrust that pierced just below my shoulder. (Ouch.) It was like sparring with a man who was both blind and deaf. (Certainly not mute, though, because he was hurling out curses that would've made Jaden blush; and she had lived all her life holed up in that damn Vampire Mountain.)

The sun was just starting to rise, and I caught a glint of the light off of metal from somewhere in the bushes. I was sure I could've grabbed Konosuke's sword from him, but compared to my katana, his tachi (seriously, tachi are huge swords, maybe five feet or more in length) would be heavier and too awkward for me (I had to feel completely in control—yes, it was sort of egotistical). So I ran for my own weapon, where I had noticed the gentle sun rays gleaming off of it, scooped it up, and turned back to him, smiling, with something twisted forming in my head.

With one swift movement, I charged and sent Konosuke hurtling into another tree, preparing a small speech in my head. He attempted to stand back up, but his legs buckled and he collapsed, still clutching that huge sword. Perfect.

"As is Toklata's wish, I won't kill you," I informed him lightly. "But you'll never hold a sword again. Don't worry, I won't cut any limbs off, that always seemed so gross to me. It should hurt quite a bit, though. In fact, I'd be disappointed if it didn't."

Before protest could be offered, I crushed the fingers on both his left and right hands with the dull side of my sword.

--

-Leigh's pov-

"What's wrong with me?" Toklata continued to quietly wail, more to herself than to me. "I feel sick. There's something wrong with me, I just know? Where's Ronin? He could tell what's wrong with me, I bet."

"Toklata, I think you should just try and rest now," I told her gently. "You lost a lot of blood, so maybe you're just feeling the effect of that? Some sleep and something to eat will do you good. Would you like me to fix you something?"

She nodded slowly, like she wasn't completely awake, and mumbled something about milk and cereal. I left to try and find some, wondering faintly if there really was something seriously wrong with her.

Ronin had said she was alive, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was implying that she was alive now, but wouldn't be in a small amount of time. Cursing his obscurity, I turned the kitchen upside down looking for Toklata's requested dish, looking last in a small cupboard above the sink, which, of course, was the one that had the cereal in it.

While pouring it and some milk into a bowl, a thought crossed my mind. Usually when doctors say that a patient had lost a lot of blood, but are alive, the process of saving them usually involved donated blood.

_Did Ronin give her some of his blood? And she's having some reaction to it? What's the chance they have the same blood type…and he's a vampire…so her body is just trying to fight of the vampire part…does that even make sense?_

I took the bowl to Toklata, and then ran back out to the living room, where I had seen a small bookshelf. There were only a few books on vampires, but I pulled each one out and carried them back to the bathroom, sitting by the sink and skimming the pages of the first book on the pile (which was huge).

"What are you looking at, Leigh?" Toklata asked weakly, putting down the half-eaten bowl of cereal and rearranging herself so that she was lying down.

"Trying to figure out why you're hurting so badly. And more about Ronin. Are you done with your cereal?"

"Yes ma'am," she confirmed, laying her head on the blankets. "I'm surprised that I'm alive. And I'm glad that I passed out, it must have hurt when Ronin sewed me up."

"Oh, so he did sew you up with fishing line?" I chuckled. "That'll be fun to take out. Oh well, you're alive. Now get some rest."

I closed the bath curtain so the bathroom light didn't bother her too much and again picked up the book, checking if it had some easy-reference index.

Well, it didn't. I would be doing this for a while.

--

-Ronin's pov-

"What to do with you now? You're no danger anymore. You'll never be able to hold a sword again, hopefully. With this stupid modern medicine, you never know. But from what I see, there's no repairing your fingers."

He didn't say a thing, only looked up at me with spite-filled eyes, shaking from the pain of the shattered bones in his fingers and all the other injuries I had given him.

I almost felt pity for him. He honestly did have a good reason to hate vampires, and if I had been in his shoes…well, who knows. Now I just had to figure out what to do with him.

I was surprised that my thoughts seemed so clear and rational after just blooding Toklata. It seemed that I was always surprised when I was around her.

"Kill me," Konosuke suddenly demanded. "If you don't, I'll keep coming after you until the day I die."

"That's an empty threat," I snarled. "I'm going to let Toklata decide what to do with you; she can be more merciful than I can, I'm sure."

I attempted to knock him out again and drag him back to Toklata, like some twisted gift, but he caught my hand.

"Kill me," he repeated, struggling to hold my fist back with his left and right palms (he was intelligent enough not to try to move his fingers at all).

"Don't be stubborn. I'm sparing you, even after what you did to Jaden. Actually, you owe the girl a thank you or two; if it truly were up to me, you'd be dying a slow and painful death right now. I'm not gonna give you some mushy speech—I think you deserve to die. But if you need some motivation to live, you can ask Toklata. I'm taking you back to your home. She's there, so don't go kill yourself until after she sees you."

I punched him with my other hand, knocking him out.

-

I saw Leigh waiting on the back steps as I approached the house, looking at some book. The sun was still up, but the house wasn't too far away, even with the unconscious Konosuke slung over my shoulder (a position I never _ever_ want to be in again).

She heard me coming and looked up from the book. She wasn't too happy to see me, apparently. Her face was twisted into an indignant, angry expression, and she was shaking her head slightly at me. She got up and walked towards me, hands curled into fists. I saw what was coming and jumped out of the way as she aimed a punch at me.

"How could you do that to her, Ronin! She had her whole life ahead of her and you just destroyed it! I hate you! You're so goddamn selfish and I _hate _you!"

I sighed and grabbed a hold of her wrist when she tried to hit me again. "So you figured it out, huh? You're saying you'd rather have seen her die?"

Her arm fell limp and she lowered her gaze. I guess she hadn't thought about that part.

"Leigh, I wouldn't have blooded her even if she had begged me to. It just happened to come down to a life-or-death situation, and I panicked. Better alive as a half-vampire than dead, right?"

"Half?" she echoed, sounding like she wasn't all quite there. I nodded and led her inside gently.

Now that Leigh had figured it out, I just had to break the news to Toklata.


	25. Chapter 25

-Ronin's pov-

I threw Konosuke on his couch and went to see Toklata. She was still hiding out in the bath, right where I had left her, humming lightly to herself. I opened the bath curtain, and she gave me a weak smile.

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

"Of course not," I replied, sitting myself next to the tub. "I knew you didn't want me to."

"That's good," she said, playing with a stray lock of hair like a kitten. "Anyway, I had a question. My hands were really hurting while you were gone, and I was really tired. And I've got these funny scratches on my fingertips. Do you know why?"

She looked at me with those eyes; those horrible puppy-dog eyes. She could probably get anything she ever wanted out of me just by batting those things a few times, honestly. I would really have to work at that so I wasn't just a pushover of a mentor.

"Toklata," I sighed, not knowing how to begin. I struggled in my mind with a few ways to break it to her gently, finally deciding to just answer her question. "I do know why you're in so much pain. Are you sure you want to know why?"

She gave a small, quick nod, and I sighed.

"You were going to die, because you had lost a lot of blood. So I put some of my blood into you. See those scars on your fingertips? That's where I pumped the blood into you. And now…now…"

"What?" she pushed in a curious voice. I couldn't stand to look at her. She was giving me what was possibly the most adorable smile I had ever seen in my two-hundred and thirty-one years, sitting at attention with her hands folded neatly in her lap, and a few stray locks of toasted-brown hair falling over her doggish nose. She concentrated on these for a few seconds, before blowing them out of her face.

"Because I put my vampire blood into you…you're now something called a half-vampire," I finally managed to stutter out. It broke my heart to see her smile falter the way it did, the corners of her mouth slowly pulling down, her bottom lip dropping slightly.

"Um…so…" She tried to figure out just what to ask; like whether I was kidding, or what exactly this meant for her.

"I'm so sorry, Toklata. But it was either this or death. This means that you will have to give up your family and friends to be my assistant—you'll have to travel with me."

"What's there to give up?" she asked dejectedly. I guess that was sort of lucky, the fact that she didn't have much of a family or any close friends. "Still…I don't think I'll make a very good vampire. I think blood tastes like tinfoil, and I kind of like the sun."

"Well, that's one of the perks of only being a half-vampire. You can be in the sun all day if you like. And I'm going to get this out of the way now, so forgive me if I sound a little bitter—you don't have a choice in this, Toklata. There's no going back to being perfectly human. It's just not possible. If you refuse to come with me, then you'll be a danger, mostly to yourself, and I'll…I'll have to kill you right here. Which was what I was trying to prevent—your death."

I would never really be able to kill her, so I just had to pray that she'd come along with me and try to make the best of life.

Just as she opened her mouth to reply, Leigh opened the door, breathless. "Konosuke is waking up," she informed us in a worried voice. "What now?"

"Toklata, you wanted him alive," I sighed, exasperated. "And I promised him you'd give him some reason to live. You feeling up to giving a mushy speech? Because I think he may just kill himself if you don't."

Now it was Toklata's turn to give a troubled sigh. "I don't want him to die"

"All right. But don't tell him you're a half-vampire. I don't know how he'll react."

She nodded and stepped shakily out of the tub, leading the way down the hallway that led through the kitchen and into the living room, where Konosuke hadn't made any move to pull himself off of the couch.

Toklata walked fearlessly up to him, with a rather defiant look on her face.

--

-Leigh's pov-

Konosuke managed to sit up against the yellow couch's arm as Toklata approached him.

"I'm glad you're okay," he mumbled, reaching out to gently touch just below Toklata's right shoulder.

She pulled away softly, but it clearly wasn't from fear. "You stuck a sword through me," she said, her voice clearly showing that she was hurt (both emotionally and physically). "And now I hear you want to kill yourself."

"What else am I supposed to do?" he asked dejectedly, sticking his hands out for her to see.

I gasped lightly at the sight of them. The fingers were a sickening blackish-purple color, a few of them twisted at hideous angles.

"Thanks to your buddy Takoda over there, I'll never be able to touch a sword…or a wooden stake…again."

"So?" she replied simply, but with a slight edge to her soft voice. "Why does that make you want to die? It's not even the age of swords and Dracula horror movies anymore!"

"You just don't understa—"

"I understand that you could live a happy life if you tried," she snapped. "You're not drop-dead ugly; you could find a nice wife! And take some cooking classes while you're at it! Just don't do something stupid like kill yourself, because no matter how bad your life is, there's always a chance for it to get better, as long as you're not dead!"

"Girl," he growled, "you don't understand. Now, let me finish before you go ranting off again." He paused, making sure Toklata wasn't going to blurt something out, and then continued when she remained grudgingly silent. "There is absolutely nothing left for me in this life, with my fingers shattered and my career destroyed. I'm a partial vampire, so I can't just live like any other man would. And you—you are _nine years old!_ But you speak as if you've lived forever, and understand everything! Such arrogance in such a small girl simply amazes me! And despite your annoying pride, you've still managed to throw my entire system of justice by befriending one of my worst enemies and then turning around and acting all sweet to me!"

Toklata stuck her nose higher into the air, a sight that was starting to become comical. "Well obviously you don't understand as much as you think; if you're sitting here ready to take you life." She looked down, no longer sneering down her nose at him, and her eyes softened. "You're not as heartless as you think. You took care of me all those days. You could've killed me whenever you wanted, but you didn't."

I had to admit, he had showed a bit of morality in this aspect. And she was right, too. Such a persuasive little girl…

"Even after I stuck a sword through you, you still don't want me to die?" he asked in a horribly confused tone. "That makes no sense. It's like throwing all reasonable logic and nature into a bottomless pit to adopt some moronic 'forgiveness' lie."

"I have to forgive you," Toklata sighed, again becoming annoyed at the fact that he couldn't quite grasp her style of merciful morality. Honestly, I couldn't either. If I had been in her shoes, I would've ordered him to be killed in the most painful way possible…or worse…

It was so simple. "Forgive and forget"—what most people had given up for the theory of sweet revenge.

Toklata took a few strands of Konosuke's hair and gently fumbled with it, staring deep into his icy blue eyes (which seemed to be melting from the heat of her own warm, cheerful eyes). "You shouldn't feel like you need to give up your life. I forgive you," she repeated. "I guess I can't stop you if you really want to die, but I'd be happier if you chose life."

She held out both arms and wrapped them around his neck, being very careful around his out-of-socket shoulder blade. Very slowly, Konosuke eased and accepted the gesture, in turn throwing his arms carefully around her back.

"For you…anything," he mumbled softly. "You win. Just get the vampire and his woman out of my house as soon as possible, and I'll…I'll head to Mexico, I suppose. Do you like the sound of that?"

"It depends. Can you speak Spanish?"

"Ah. I'll learn. Now hurry up and get out." He released her and pushed her lightly towards the bathroom. She spared him an over-the-shoulder smile before disappearing down the short hallway. Ronin and I followed (only after sending Konosuke a final dirty look), not even reaching the doorway before she came back out, with her single set of clothes balled up in her arms.

"Hey, what's the hurry?" Ronin asked jokingly.

"Mister Konosuke would like us out as soon as possible," she informed us, as if we hadn't heard their entire conversation mere moments before. "Mister Konosuke, would you like your shirt back?" she called down the hall.

"Not all covered in your blood," he laughed back. "Come back here for a second."

She did without a second's hesitation, back through the kitchen and into the charming den. Ronin and I peeked our heads around the corner, still not nearly as trusting of him as Toklata was.

"You're such a kind girl."

"You aren't too bad yourself."

Surprisingly, they hugged again, and then said their final goodbyes. I still couldn't understand how warm they were with each other—perhaps it was just something beyond understanding. I made a mental note to ask Ronin about it later, just as Toklata skipped past us and out the broken back door. Ronin followed right after, but I stood, watching Konosuke as he heaved a heavy sigh and stared at his hands.

I couldn't really sympathize, no matter how hard I tried. And when he noticed that I was still there, he turned his cold glare on me.

"I don't have any qualms about killing _you_."

It wasn't really a threat, with his hands the way they were, but I still followed Ronin and Toklata into the cool night air, saying that we could go back to my place.

"Leigh, are you suggesting something?" Ronin whispered teasingly into my ear, before I reminded him that a child was present.

--

A/N—SORRY! Ah, there's been flooding around here, so I wasn't home too much. I didn't get flooded, but my camper did, and I've spent a lot of time at my grandma's house trying to get the river muck out of it!


	26. Chapter 26

-Ronin's pov-

After that speech, I couldn't imagine Toklata refusing to come along with me, but there was a lot more I wanted her to understand before she went skipping off, announcing to the world that she was a half-vampire.

We all walked silently back to Leigh's home, through the dark woods. I could tell that she was obsessing over something inside her pretty little head; probably what she was going to tell Kam's poor babysitter when the three of us showed up tired and bloody.

Toklata kept a completely unreadable face the whole way, as if she was sleepwalking…or maybe she was just really, really tired. One of those.

"Do you want me to carry you?" I asked. She nodded weakly, not making a sound, so I lifted her up and put her on my shoulders, and she fell asleep within minutes.

"So you've gotta take care of her from now on?" Leigh asked quietly, snapping out of her daze.

"It would be wrong to abandon her—she is my responsibility now." I sighed. "I told myself that I would never have an assistant. Vampirism isn't a pretty thing, and, unfortunately, she'll have to learn that eventually."

"Will she be okay? She's not…I mean, she doesn't seem like a very vampish sort of person."

"With a good mentor guiding her, she should be fine."

"That's you, then?" she asked, yawning slightly. "You're gonna be that 'good mentor' and keep her alive, right?"

"Not only that, I'll make her into a regular swords-genius! A…heavenly sword-bearing goddess! The rose of kenjutsu, they'll call her!"

Leigh gave a little smirk, trying to discreetly hide it behind her hand. I admit, I actually felt a prick of excitement at my own words—I was a mentor now, time to shape up and pass on elegant sword techniques to the next generation. And to this girl! I was already making plans in my head—her sword skills would rely on speed rather than power, judging by her delicate frame, and instead of a katana, she would use something shorter so she could focus more on defense, because she wouldn't be one for killing.

I would have company every day, too. And someone I could actually trust…this girl. Loyalty would be her strongest value, of course.

"Okay, here we are," Leigh said tiredly, breaking me from my musings as she pulled a key from her battered shop uniform. I hadn't even realized we were back in the small town yet, let alone right outside the door of Leigh's business/home. It's a wonder I didn't walk into a tree or something.

"Get yourself and Toklata into a room somewhere; I'll take care of the sitter."

I did as she asked after she opened the door, stealthily climbing the stairs and darting into an empty room, while she took her time and found her way to her own room, where Kam and his sitter were sleeping.

I heard their voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying between the awoken Kam's cries, and so easily ignored them, turning back to my own thoughts.

I didn't have any reason to feel proud now. But someday I would. Someday, Toklata would be a respected vampire, both intellectually and for her amazing sword skills. That's what I told myself (sure, it didn't really work out that way, but I had good intentions).

She stirred lightly and I took her off my shoulders, laying her on a nearby green bedspread, realizing that it was the room I had stayed in before.

What a tiring event we had all gone through. Leigh was lucky—her adventure was over. Toklata and I, however, had a long road ahead of us.

--

I had drifted off, and was awoken by several rather annoying beams of sunlight sifting through the blinds of the window, and the smell of breakfast. Toklata was gone, and so I grudgingly stood up, stretched (sleeping upright on the wooden floor hadn't done a thing for me), and tried to find where the wafting scent was coming from.

Down the hall was a small kitchen, where Leigh was hanging over a stove and Toklata sat on the wooden floor with Kam, keeping him well-amused. It was a pretty kitchen, like one that might be found in an old cottage in the Adirondacks, and it was on the west side of the house, so the just-rising sun didn't creep in too badly.

"Morning Ronin," Toklata greeted cheerily.

"If it isn't sleeping beauty," Leigh teased, turning around. Her face dropped when she saw me. "Ronin…"

"What?" I snapped back, rubbing my eyes and sitting down at the round oak table in the center of the room..

"Your hair…"

"What about it?"

She came over and yanked on a lock of it. "Nothing. It's perfect. Don't you get bed head?"

"I know you think that I'm gorgeous, Leigh, but we have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. Toklata, come here."

The girl looked up from her spot on the floor but didn't move (which would be her first rebellious act ever—joy). I sighed, not wanting to argue with her. "Well, fine. Just stay there. I see you're occupied. But you still have to talk to me. How do you feel?"

She paused for a long moment, staring blankly at the baby before her, who was happily gurgling (I despise those demons that the humans call babies, I might add). Finally, she sighed, "I don't wanna be a vampire. I know you don't kill humans and all, but…but still…it sounds…not so nice. I can't hold a sword and—"

"You'll learn," I assured her. "You'll learn everything you need to know. And you're smart, so you'll grasp it quickly, and…and still, you don't look the slightest bit excited."

"I don't wanna seem ungrateful, but I like my life as it is. It's not perfect, but…but that's just the way things are. I know there's nothing I can do about it, but I just didn't plan on suddenly having to leave, that's all."

"Well, I didn't plan on suddenly getting a kid, so we're even. But it's okay. We'll make the best of it…of course, we'll have to find you a wooden training sword somewhere…"

Leigh, who had been silently cooking for the whole conversation so far, turned around and lifted up Kam, saying, "Are you sure you want to turn her into a swordswoman, Ronin? Swordsmanship is killing, after all. Staining white hands and all that."

I gave her an evil "the-girl-doesn't-need-to-know-that" look, and the conversation ended there.

--

-Leigh's pov-

With that, Ronin stood up. "Wistful Eyes, I'm going back to the cave to grab your stuff. I'll make it quick, so don't worry about the sun—it's mostly dense forest anyway…Wistful Eyes, are you listening?"

Toklata, who had been twiddling her thumb with a sad expression, looked up. "Me?"

"Yes, of course you. Who else has a backpack in the middle of a cave." He left the kitchen and quickly tromped down the stairs, but I set Kam back on the floor by Toklata and followed after him. He was halfway out the door when I called, "Wistful Eyes? What kind of nickname is that?"  
He shrugged. "All great mentors must have silly and/or degrading names for their assistants."

"Ah. I see. What was your degrading nickname?"

"Leigh, I'm trying to go save a very expensive flute," he growled, turning slightly pink at the cheeks. "We can discuss that later."

I smiled as he quickly shot out the door, very eager for "later" to come, so we could discuss his cute little nickname.

Meanwhile, I realized that the food was probably close to burning to a crisp, and rushed back up to the small kitchen. Toklata was forlornly shaking a rattle at Kam, who was apparently enjoying the event much more than she was.

I knelt down by her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be all right. Ronin, despite how insufferable he seems, will definitely take care of you. I'm guessing you're something of a daughter to him now. Just do me a favor—when you get older, don't let him scare off any potential boyfriends. That's something_ my_ father liked to do."

"I don't trust anyone more than Ronin," she said emotionlessly. "I'll be fine."

"There you go—be positive! Remember, what you told Konosuke applies to yourself as well."

Suddenly, she looked up, and a huge smile had cracked across her face. "I'll be fine," she repeated.

--

Ronin returned a few hours later with two bags. He handed one to Toklata, who smiled and pulled out a flute case that was in a sorry condition, while he began to rummage through the smaller black one, pulling out six small, shining throwing knives and examining them.

"Kunai," he explained, cautiously poking the tip of one. "They were my mentor's. They'll be good defense for someone as light as you until you get a good sword." He stuck one between two fingers, demonstrating how to hold them, and then handed it to Toklata, who mimicked his actions.

"Thank you," she whispered as he handed her the rest of them.

She traced a small finger over the tip, drawing blood.

--

A/N—Ah…what a pause! I was on vacation last week, so that's why you all had to wait so long. Plus, the story is coming to a close, so it's not holding my attention as much as it was… Only one or two more chapters to go!


	27. Chapter 27

"You're leaving? So soon?"

"We've been too much of a burden already," Ronin chuckled, motioning half-heartedly to the small holes throughout the living room's walls, proof that Toklata had taken to practicing with her thowing knives. "And it's only a matter of time before someone sees her here. Keep in mind that she's supposed to be dead."

Leigh blinked. "Oh, right. But technically, she's still just missing. They're only assuming that she's dead."

"Either way, if someone sees her, we'll both be in trouble," he sighed. Her personality was one that could get on your nerves; she was always trying to start an argument, always disagreeing. "Not to mention me—I should leave before your employees start to think things."

"Too late for that."

She began to walk away, downstairs to the shop, but Ronin snaked his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. "Would you like to prove that their suspicions are correct?"

"Let me go, Ronin," she sighed, exasperated.

"Right. Just checking that it was really you. A lesser woman would've—"

"I don't want to hear it. I've got to get to work." Ronin released her and she headed for the stairs, but she paused halfway there, turning back to him. "You can't just make off with a missing child. That's kidnapping."

Ronin smirked. "But if they think she's dead, then it's not."

"But she hasn't been declared dead—"

"Only for now, Leigh, but give it a few weeks. I have a friend who specializes in a rather dark art form. I'll get a hold of her and ask a favor."

Curious now, Leigh turned around completely. "'Dark art form?' What do you mean?"

His grin grew wider. "Let's just say, if you hear that she's dead a few weeks from now, don't believe it. Even if you see physical proof. This friend of mine…" he laughed softly, "Well, she makes dolls. And that's all I'm going to say, so get down there and run your shop or whatever."

"Dolls?"

But Ronin refused to say anything more on the subject and headed for his room, where Toklata was peacefully napping off the final (or so one could only hope) fatigues of her vampirism. He tried not to wake her while he was packing up what few possessions he had, debating whether or not to pack her things for her or make her do it herself (something Jaden would've done). Unfortunately, her senses were still adjusting, and she woke at the light metallic sound of his sword being sheathed, sitting straight up in the bed and rubbing her eyes.

"Umm…Ronin? What are you doing?"

"We're going to be leaving soon. Get your things packed." Okay. Yes, she would have to do it herself. No going easy on her.

"Oh." Her voice was slightly disappointed. "Okay."

She agreed so easily that it almost made him feel guilty. Put in the same situation at her age, he would've whined and complained and argued…and gotten his ass beaten.

Sliding off the bed, Toklata picked up her small backpack and headed out the door towards the kitchen, which was presumably where she had left her flute. Ronin sighed at her poorly disguised sadness. Of course she wouldn't want to leave, not when she was having such fun with Kam. She was actually very good with him, and lifted a huge weight off of Leigh's shoulders whenever she could baby sit the boy.

_So Leigh wasn't disappointed that _I_ was leaving, she was disappointed that _the girl_ was leaving… Damn, that woman is so hard please. _He smiled. _But that's what makes her so interesting._

Toklata returned, flute pressed to her lips, several minutes later. She was pressing the keys to match some tune, but not actually blowing into it, as to prevent waking Kam from his nap.

"Do you ever put that thing down?"

"I could ask the same thing about your sword," she replied lightly.

_Has she always been that slick talker, or has she learned something from me already? _

Without any reply from Ronin, she looked up with a questioning expression, only to see the usual conceited smirk.

"I like Leigh's house," she sighed, plopping herself back onto the bed and stretching across it.

His grin faltered. "I know. But we have to leave soon." He sat down next to her on the green bedspread and whispered, "I think Leigh is getting a little sick of us."

She giggled at that. "I don't think so."

"Really, just go ask her. Ah, on second thought, don't. Now come on and get your things packed up. If you don't say another word about it, we'll pick you up some new clothes once we get out of town."

Not surprisingly, she looked as if she would much rather go on with a single outfit if it meant she could stay.

"I'm sorry, Wistful Eyes," Ronin sighed. The whole situation would've been so much less heartbreaking if she had kicked and screamed and argued—then, he could've easily told her that she was a selfish brat and that Leigh didn't want her in her home anyway.

But Toklata was Toklata, and she just quietly slid off of the bed and began shoving things of hers that had been scattered across the room into her backpack.

"We just…really have to go. I'm not sure if you understand why right now, but—"

He paused at the sight of the plush dog she held in her arms. It hadn't been so long ago that he had first given it to her, and yet it seemed so far away.

It was from the time when everything had been okay; when she had just been a day's pleasant, unjudging company, and he had just been the swordsman that chased off the obnoxious little boys that had taken a liking to beating her up.

"_Wonderful. I saved a thief!"_

He remembered saying that.

"_Hey! Were they the bad guys?"_

"_Honestly, I don't really know anymore, girl."_

And there was a question still unanswered.

There was always the chance that living her life as a half-vampire would be better than waiting it out as a miserable human. She would get some small amount of affection this way, guaranteed. The friend he had mentioned to Leigh, in fact, would probably spoil her rotten.

So, maybe everything was still okay.

"Um…Ronin?"

He snapped back to that particular time, blinking and putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Everything…everything will be okay."

For a few confused moments, her brow was drawn in an attempt to figure out what exactly he was talking about. But then, a huge smile broke across her face. "I know," she said cheerfully. "I trust you."

Ronin smiled back. "Good. I trust you, too. Now," he grinned, taking on a stern tone of voice and clapping his hands together, "don't make me tell you to get your things packed up again, or there will be a punishment."

"But you're the one who was talking to m—"

"Ah! Not another word, Wistful Eyes!"

She quickly began running around, sloppily throwing things into the small bag, her flute laying abandoned on the bed. She ran out of the room to find it's case, and came back panicked because she couldn't remember where she had thrown the actual instrument.

Ronin sighed and pointed it out to her, making note that organization skills were also something that needed to be taught.

After he was sure that she was done bursting in and out of their shared room, he slept, peacefully and dreamlessly for the first time in ages.

--

"Toklata, have you seen Ronin anywhere?"

"He's asleep. Um…I think we're going to leave tonight."

Leigh nodded. "He told me. But I came upstairs to wake Kam, so you can play with him until then if you'd like to."

She smiled, following Leigh into her well-lit room and waiting for her to properly wake her nephew up.

"He's all fed and everything, so you can just take him right to the den and play," she said softly, putting him down when he was awake enough to stand up straight.

Toklata took his hand and led him off to the living room, where all of his toys were scattered in a horrid mess, so they could, undoubtedly, pull out more and make the mountain of stuffed animals and toy cars even bigger.

It was an amusing thing, but Leigh only smiled for a moment, as she happened to catch sight of Kam and Toklata's intertwined hands. Compared to his, her hand seemed already sickly-pale—which could've just been because she hadn't gotten to go outside since returning to the house, but also served as an unwanted reminder of what she was now.

With a sigh, Leigh went back to her work, pushing _that_ depressing thought to the very back of her mind.

--

"Are you sure you don't want to stay a bit longer? Kam will be sad to see you go."

"Leigh," Ronin growled warningly. Toklata already didn't want to go, and the woman was just trying to make trouble.

Leigh smiled mischievously, hoisting the sleeping Kam further onto her waist.

It was just around midnight when they all stood gathered right outside the backdoor of her home, two of them with small packs slung over their shoulders, one fast asleep, and the last trying to think of ways to make the other's companionship last longer—one who had grown quite fond of Ronin, even if she wouldn't admit it.

Toklata's eyes started tearing up. "We had lots of fun. Maybe we'll see each other again."

"Oh, Toklata, don't cry. You'll make me—ah, too late!" Leigh kneeled down and hugged her, which was rather difficult to do without waking Kam. After a few moments, the girl stopped squeezing the life out of her, and she stood up, wiping her eyes and turning to Ronin. "So…what? Do I hug you?"

Ronin smiled. "Maybe we should act a bit more impersonal. Your employees—"

"Aren't here right now," she finished, standing on her toes and planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Do you want me to hose you down at this hour, Leigh? You'll freeze."

She smacked him playfully. "Get lost! The girl can stay, but you've got to go, Ronin Takoda!"

"Women…" he muttered, before lifting up Toklata and throwing her over his shoulder. "All right, Wistful Eyes! Ready?"

She giggled and wiped her face free of tears. "Okay. Let's go. Bye, Leigh!"

"See ya. Make sure you give Ronin hell as soon as you hit thirteen."

"Thank you, Leigh," Ronin snarled, leaning down and kissing her as well. "I can honestly say that I won't be forgetting _you_. I'd appreciate if you'd do the same."

Without waiting for an answer, he began walking, Toklata waving from over his shoulder until the two disappeared into the trees.

--

A/N- This isn't the last chapter! I hope to get a quick epilogue up before I go to bed tonight. I'll explain everything there! I have to go now! Eep!


	28. Epilogue

Leigh wasn't one for reading the local paper. She never had been, thinking that it was stupid and depressing. But, when a familiar face was depicted on the front page, it's features twisted in agony, she had to pick one up. She didn't even glance at the actual article until she got home and threw the paper over her kitchen table. There, she desperately scanned through it.

The picture—it was Toklata's corpse. Her neck was twisted in a very gruesome angle and her face was in complete shock—eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.

According to the article, Toklata had fallen out of a huge tree in the forest that she was fond of climbing and broken her neck, dying instantly.

She remembered what Ronin had said to her:

"Let's just say, if you hear that she's dead a few weeks from now, don't believe it. Even if you see physical proof."

It was just a photo, but…it really hit her, even after thinking of Ronin's confident tone. The girl in the picture was identical to Toklata in every way, right down to her soft, doggish nose and her short fingernails—it just _had_ to be her! Despite what Ronin had said to her.

She bit back bitter tears, slumping into a chair and putting a desperate hand to the paper, as if her fingers would search out some proof against what she was so obviously seeing.

She scanned the girl's hair—each piece was flawlessly in place, and exactly the color and shade it should have been. Her face was the same, right down to the childish curve of her cheeks and her small, pinkish lips. Then the shoulders: slim and slightly droopy.

Out of hope, Leigh continued downwards out of lack of anything better to do, noting the way her oversized shirt hung over the right shoulder, revealing quite a bit of her chest.

Where there should have been a scar.

Leigh was fairly certain that when you got a sword stuck through you, it left a scar.

She blinked. Toklata _did_ have a scar there. So the girl in the picture…couldn't be her.

She heaved a huge sigh of relief, blocking out the new questions that her revelation raised long enough to enjoy the thought.

--

Several days later, Leigh was still trying to sort out the whole thing in her muddled head. She hadn't slept well the last few nights and her work had gone by in a haze, even after an alarming amount of coffee. Her empolyees didn't understand it (not only that—they thought it unhealthy), but they didn't pry either.

She almost got hit by a car while fetching the mail that day.

On her lunch break, she sorted through it, only to get to the last one and close her eyes in agony. All the others had been bills. And the last one would most likely be the same. She cracked an eye open to peek at it.

Her first name, and her first name only, was scrawled across the front of the lavender-colored envelope in curvy, romantic lettering, along with her address underneath. The corner reserved for the return address was empty, but when she flipped the letter over, written in the same light handwriting was 'Ronin.'

Anxious to read it, she made herself some hot coco and took it to the living room, where she could wrap up in a blanket. Only then, once completely comfortable, did she rip it open.

She nearly choked on her drink.

The outside writings may have looked nice, but the letter…well, Ronin's swordsmanship may have been good enough, but he needed a little help with his penmanship. His handwriting was awful—so awful that he would have been better off if he had just made Toklata write it for him.

Getting over it (while still hoping that she would actually be able to read it), Leigh began to read.

_Leigh,_

Well, you must have seen it by now, and I will apologize for it. The Toklata-corpse doll, I mean. My old friend Sakura knows the dark art of karakuri, which is creating lifelike dolls from…well, I won't get into what they're made out of, but, the point is that they're an exact copy of their subject, so intricate that a doctor wouldn't be able to tell the difference. (We did leave off her newest scar, though, and I knew that you would catch that.)

So, I'm sorry. We had to make people think that she was dead. I know it was gruesome, but Sakura had to make it so there wouldn't be an autopsy, because the dolls are all wires on the inside.

On to brighter matters—she's a regular swords genius! (This is something I will never admit to her face, however. So if we do happen to see you again, you should keep your mouth shut.) Thinking about it—maybe not a genius, but she works hard.

Not only that, but her odd personality shows in every aspect of what she does. Only a few days ago did she declare that the stuffed animal I got for her was to be referred to as "Mister Konosuke."

She's missed having Kam to play with—apparently he was more fun than I am. In truth, I've kind of missed you as well—or arguing with you, one of those two. You are such an interesting and intelligent woman, and I wish we could have gone farther (much farther) than we did.

Now, before you rip up the letter out of anger (which is very much something you would do), I'll stop.

Toklata is quickly learning her real place. She has stopped calling me by name and has started to refer to me as 'master' instead. Not only that, but she sometimes acts adorably rebellious, as she very well should be. Blind, unquestioning loyalty is not a good thing, and a child should be skeptical of the things that they are taught. It's only healthy.

I know that you're worried about raising Kam by yourself. But don't worry. Raising a child seems to come naturally.

I wish I could give you a return address, but vampires aren't very partial to settling down. And soon, we will be out of these horrid cities and I won't be able to write you either, unless we happen upon a small town with a post office during our travels.

So this is probably the real good bye. Take care of yourself and that kid of yours. And wish me luck with mine.

Farewell,

Ronin Takoda.

Leigh smiled. That man was one that could both insult you and compliment you at the same time. Poor Toklata.

-End-

A/N-Kya! It's finally finished! Now for my usual explanation. My cousins came to visit last weekend, so I couldn't write, and then my dad's laptop broke, so I'm using a piece of crap computer that didn't have spell check until a few moments ago. This weekend was my brother's birthday, and when I posted the last chapter, I was in such a rush because he asked me to play monopoly with him. The last chapter had a lot of spelling errors, but I fixed them once my dad took a few minutes to install the spell checker. Now the other things.

Anonymous reviewers: Since I reply through personal e-mail, I never go to thank any of my anonymous reviewers. So now, **thank you all so much for taking the time to read and review my humble work. I appreciate it.**

Signed reviewers: I have probably already wrote back to you, but will thank you all again for taking time out of your schedule to read this.

**Thank you to everyone—I couldn't have done it without your support.** **Twenty-nine chapters of vampire goodness…** is a lot of work.

Sequel: I would like to write one, if enough of you would like me to. If I do, it won't be all OC's like this one, and will include other saga characters. This means it'll (most likely) focus on Toklata and Ronin heading for Vampire Mountain, and Leigh, Kam, and Konosuke will not be included (T.T). Anyway, if you'd like to see a sequel, just leave me one last review saying so.

Paws


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